Monday, 7:30 AM. 57 degrees, wind NW, calm. The channel is patterned with large glassy areas interspersed with lightly wrinkled areas, very pretty. The barometer is up, predicting sunny weather, and the skies are currently clear with some haze on the eastern horizon.
The garden peonies will open today, and lilies are blooming as well. Roses will bloom in a few days.
The lupines (Lupinus perennis) are in full bloom all around the area and the earliest to open are now setting seed. Lupines get their genus name from the latin name for wolf, lupus, because early settlers thought that because they grew in sandy barrens the plants must “wolf” the soil nutrients, which they do not, but are rather an indicator of infertile soils. They are a real show, and could be a major tourist attraction if their annual blooming date was reliable, which it is not, but can vary by a couple of weeks depending upon the weather. Our lupines look like they are mostly the native lupine but local heritage says they were introduced from the Ba yfield flower farms early in the 1900’s. I think the story is more complicated than that as the wild lupine is common in Bayfield County in the oak barrens, and may have migrated from there over the years, and possibly these plants have mixed with horticultural selections of the native lupine grown by the flower farms.
In any case it is a complicated history, and the USDA and the Wisconsin sources are not particularly helpful. Our plants are mostly deep blue with some white and pink individuals and some flowers with white throats, and the native plants have pretty much that range of color variability. Ours may have been horticultural color selections that escaped back into native populations, enriching their color palette. I have seen these plants all along the southern Lake Superior shoreline and northern Lake Michigan dunes, from Duluth to at least the Mackinac Bridge, so if it isn’t native it might as well be considered such. But, native or not, they are beautiful, dependable, and a joy to see. I have seen the Texas bluebonnets in full bloom (also lupines but much shorter) and I think ours are every bit as much of an attraction.
If I were more of a botanical sleuth I would try to really figure this conundrum out, and maybe I will get into it in greater depth at some future time. Photos really do not do the lupine display justice, as they often occur in huge fields which don't seem to have much of an impact in a photograph, and they usually appear in patches large and small along the roadside, like pearls on a string, or more like charms on a bracelet, so their aesthetic impact is much greater than that depicted in a picture. Right now they are in bloom along Hwy 13 from Ashland all the way to Red Cliff and and beyond along the south shore.
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