Shrinking lupines

A few kilometres north, a few hundred metres higher; it makes a difference. In open spaces near our coast here on Vancouver Island, the lupines grow to a metre and a half tall. Their leaves are wide, the flowers densely packed along a long stalk. Taking the highway north, I find smaller lupines, the Nootka lupines, shorter, with smaller leaves; they can reach 1 metre tall. Up on the slopes of Mount Washington, the Arctic lupine grows; the leaves are smaller, with half as many leaflets, the flower stalks barely 60 cm. tall, with a few flowers on each stalk.

Other than that, lupines are lupines.

Arctic lupines, Lupinus arcticus, in Paradise Meadows, 1100 metres above sea level.

6 to 8 leaflets, a few flowers per stalk.

And a long-bodied spider. I think it may be one of the Tetranathidae family.

Northern lupines

Near the north end of the island, the lupines are just going to seed. Down here in Campbell River, the pods are black and hard, and mostly empty already.

This is probably the Arctic Lupine, Lupinus arcticus*.

The green pods look like woolly caterpillars up close:

Very fuzzy!

A few plants still are producing flowers.

* Nootka lupines** grow this far south (but not as far down as Campbell River), but the stalks are taller, up to about 1 m. tall. These were under two feet tall.

** Bears like to eat the roots of Nootka lupines. So do some of the First Nations people; the Nuxalk roast them or steam them in pits.