Saturday, May 8, 2010

sky lupine ~ 05/08/10 ~ Fort Ord


sky lupine
Lupinus nanus
Fabaceae

There was a very impressive showing of sky lupine at Fort Ord. Wow! It smelled really nice, according to my hubby since a cold has taken out my sniffer. I liked how they appeared straight down from above; you'd almost never guess what it was. I couldn't believe the white one we found. I wonder how often that happens. CalPhotos has a picture of a white sky lupine, too. It was a challenge to take non-fuzzy flower pictures in the afternoon wind, but the lighting was amazing! These pics make me think of late-summer, due to the low lighting angle, but we all know lupines here in CA are definitely a spring bloomer and the grass turns bright yellow come June. Compare the density of the lupine to last year May 6, 2009 at the same location, and I thought that was the year of the lupine. Nope.

4 comments:

Brad said...

I love staring at lupine straight from above. They make the most amazing patterns. Great pics.

Orchids and Nature said...

Thanks for your comment on the Bluebells on my blog. We live on different continents and in different climates and as far as I know we have no Wild Lupins similar to your Lupines in the British Isles but we do have garden escapes which have colonized some of our motorway grass bankings. I have also found large areas of Lupins in the woodlands of the Austrian Alps but I'm not sure that they are endemic or just more garden escapes.

Katie (Nature ID) said...

Thanks, Brad! I don't know if I ever really stopped to look at the topview before. I try to avoid trampling them on the edges of trails. Usually, I marvel at how they can paint a hillside blue.

David, isn't it amazing that each of our native, scented blue flowers are going gangbusters at the same time. It's interesting to hear they're garden escapes over the pond (is that the term?)

biobabbler said...

I've never even thought of looking at them from above. And they DO look like a totally different flower from that perspective. Something new and fun to do mit camera! =)