Lupinus albicaulis

Sickle keeled lupine

Family: Fabaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Sickle keeled lupine is a California native perennial found in the Klamath Ranges, northern Coast Ranges, Cascade Range, Sierra Nevada, and western Transverse Ranges in dry montane slopes and openings at elevations of 500 to 3,000 meters. Flowering from May to July, this plant produces purple to yellow-white flowers with a distinctively curved keel in inflorescences 10 to 44 centimeters long. Growing 30 to 120 centimeters tall with erect stems covered in fine puberulent to silky-appressed hairs, it develops an upright, open structure. Its green to green-gray leaves are composed of 5 to 10 leaflets, each 20 to 70 millimeters long, with prominent stipules 5 to 18 millimeters in length. The fruit is a silky pod 2 to 5 centimeters long, containing 3 to 7 gray to tan mottled seeds.

Habitat: dry slopes, openings, +- montane

Bloom period: May-Jul

Elevation: 500-3000 m

Bioregions: KR, NCoRH, CaRH, SNH, WTR

California counties: Fresno, Ventura, El Dorado, San Bernardino, Butte, Kern, Plumas, Mono, Tulare, San Diego, Humboldt, Siskiyou, Mariposa, Shasta, Calaveras, Amador, Los Angeles, Placer, Trinity, Alpine, Sierra, Tehama, Tuolumne, Nevada, Contra Costa, Madera, Del Norte, Yuba, Napa, San Mateo

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.