Lupinus luteolus

Butter lupine, Butter Lupine

Family: Fabaceae · Type: annual · Native

Butter lupine is a California native annual found in northwestern California, the California Ranges, eastern San Francisco Bay Area, and northern Santa Cruz Mountains in clearings and open areas within grasslands, oak woodlands, and conifer forests at elevations of 200 to 1,900 meters. Flowering from March to August, this plant produces pale yellow flowers occasionally tinged with pink or bright blue, arranged in crowded whorls on 5 to 22 centimeter inflorescences. Growing 30 to 100 centimeters tall with hard, rigid stems that appear glaucous and become less hairy with age, it develops a distinctive structure with persistent disk-like cotyledons. Its leaves feature 7 to 9 leaflets, each 10 to 30 millimeters long, typically hairy on the upper surface and arranged on petioles 2 to 5 centimeters in length. The spreading fruit is ovate, 1 to 1.5 centimeters long, and covered in fine hairs, containing two dark brown, tubercled seeds.

Habitat: Clearings, open or disturbed areas in grasslands, oak woodlands, conifer forests

Bloom period: Mar-Aug (generally later at higher elevations)

Elevation: 200-1900 m

Bioregions: NW, CaRF, e SnFrB and n SCoRI (Diablo Range), w WTR

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