Chick Lupine

Chick Lupine is an annual species of lupine growing up to 80 centimeters tall. Like all lupines, this plant’s leaves are palmately compounded, with 5-11 leaflets extending in a circle from a central stem. The leaves, which range from dark green and smooth to pale green and hairy, are 1-5 cm long and up to 1 cm broad. Like the leaves, the plant’s flowers bear the characteristic lupine blooms, which appear like pea flowers. The many small blooms are arranged in dense, symmetrical layers around tall stems, or, for var. densiflorus, in tight whorls, which open from the bottom up. The flowers are typically pale pink to purple in color, but can also range from white to yellow. When the pea pods emerge, the whorls turn sideways (though not for var. microcarpus).

Basic Information

• Member of the Fabaceae, or pea family

• Annual herb

• There are three varieties of the chick lupine with overlapping ranges:

  • Lupinus microcarpus var. densiflorus (whitewhorl lupine or dense-flowered lupine) — Endemic to western California

  • Lupinus microcarpus var. horizontalis — Endemic to southeastern California deserts

  • Lupinus microcarpus var. microcarpus

Habitat

• Native to western North America from southwestern British Columbia south through Oregon and California and into Baja California

• Widespread in California, growing from sea level in the north of the range, up to 1600 meter in the southern part of the state, as well as in the Mojave Desert

• Common in open and disturbed places, such as meadows, grasslands, coastal sage scrub, chaparral, open oak woodlands, and roadsides

Ecological Role

• Frequented by large bees and other insect pollinators

Reproduction

• Blooms from May-June

• Produces seed pods, which explosively splits along 2 seams to eject the small black seeds

Alternative Names

• wide-bannered lupine, chick lupine, dense flowered platycarpos