Lupin
Lupinus sp. · Wildflowers
Lupine leaves after rain
Coastal areas Northern California, 26 April 2025
Not the flower but the leaf. Lupine leaflets radiate from a single point like spokes, and their slightly hairy surface holds rainwater in beads rather than letting it sheet off.
The leaves also move: they fold their leaflets upward at night and in the heat of the day, and turn to face the sun in the morning, which is why a lupine bed looks different at breakfast and at lunch.
Lupins
Goodnestone, 1 June 2024
Garden lupins, almost certainly Russell hybrids given the colour range on show - this spike still half in bud at the top, a second, pink one going over behind it.
Each floret opens from the bottom of the spike upward, which is why the two ends of the same flower can look like different stages of the plant's life. The Russell strain was bred by a Yorkshire railwayman, George Russell, who spent twenty years selecting them in his allotment and showed the first in 1937.
Birds, insects, plants and other wildlife, mostly from Brooklyn, with some from further afield.
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