Lupinus onustus

Plumas lupine

Family: Fabaceae · Type: perennial · Native

Plumas lupine is a California native perennial found in the Klamath Ranges, northern high Sierra Nevada, and northern Sierra Nevada Mountains in dry banks and yellow pine forests at elevations of 500 to 2,000 meters. Flowering from April to September, this plant produces violet flowers 8 to 11 millimeters long with a distinctive banner and ciliate keel margins. Growing as a short, decumbent herb 20 to 30 centimeters tall with green, silky stems, it forms clustered stems near the base. Its leaves have 5 to 9 oblanceolate leaflets, 15 to 50 millimeters long, which are silky on the undersides and generally glabrous on top. The fruit is a hairy pod 3 to 4.5 centimeters long, containing 5 to 6 brown seeds.

Habitat: dry banks, mostly yellow pine forest, on serpentine

Bloom period: Apr-Sep

Elevation: 500-2000 m

Bioregions: KR, CaRH, n SNH

California counties: Siskiyou, Shasta, Plumas, Lassen, Del Norte, Trinity, Humboldt, El Dorado, Sierra

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