One of the most prominent flowers seen in Maine, is lupin. It holds a place dear to Mainers and visitors alike… it says summer in Maine.

In June fields and roadsides are blanketed with the purple, pink, and cream flower spi kes of lupin. They are striking close up, and form soft drifts of color in the landscape. They are a marking point in Maine’s yearly cycle. When the lupin are in bloom, it is summer.

Known here as roadside lupin,
its Latin name is Lupinus polyphyllus.

At this time of year one sees cars screeching to a halt along the side of the road, narrowly avoiding a rear end collision. A person leaps out, and grabs a shovel, and starts hacking away at the ground to take plants home. This is a futile effort to get the plant to ones garden.

If a large full grown plant is blooming, it can NOT be moved! Lupin are deeply tap rooted. Small seedlings can be moved, large blooming lupin plants from Maine can not.

The lupin one sees in such profusion are not native to Maine. The native species is Lupinus perennis, and has not been documented within the state in years.

A few years ago Acadia National Park on Mt. Desert Island wanted to eradicate them from the park, as they are not indiginous. The outcry was immense! The lupin stayed.

The roadside lupin grows from 24″ – 40″ tall. It has distinctive palmate leaves. It is a legume, and the flowers have a typical bean or pea flower with the top petals called standards, two lateral wings and a keel, which is the two lowest petals that are fused together. The flowers can be a single color or bicolor. The flowers can be shades of purple, blue, pink, violet, and white. If one sees a yellow lupin it is probably a Russel hybrid that has escaped from a garden.

In May one sees the first evidence of the lupin flowers to come.
Clumps of leaves protruding from grass along the roads and in fields are seen.

The palmate leaves are very distinctive.
And rimmed with dew in the early morning, or holding a drop of water from rain,
are lovely in their own right.

The stems arise with flowers tightly packed along the stock.
They open from the bottom.

The flower stock elongates as the flower open.
It is then that the two toned effect of the flowers
becomes evident.

A field of lupin, in full bloom,
dances in the wind.

A lupin plant, with the last of its initial flowering stalk still blooming,
will start forming seeds pods, as new lateral stalks are formed.

The seed pods are fuzzy,
which helps them shed moisture as the seed pods mature,
lessening the probability of rotting.

The lupin blooms for a good three weeks.
As the lupin matures,
the surrounding grasses and other plants have also been growing.
The elongation of the stems as the flowers open,
keeps the flowers
above the surrounding grasses and other plants,
which means they continue to add color to in a field or in a bed of other maturing plants.

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So, how does one move Maine lupin? One can move small plants. But, before digging them out of the landscape willy nilly- be prepared. Bring a proper box, foil, paper towel, and water. One wants to wrap the root ball in a wet paper towel, and either pack them closely together in a box, or wrap the moist paper covered roots in foil.

The other way is simpler. The first is just to remove full formed seed pods, gently, from the flower stem, place them in a paper bag, and take them home. Place them where you want plants. The pods will finish drying, and crack open, spilling the seed.

If you decide to cut a full stalk with seeds, please only take one per plant, so they will reseed the area you are taking them from. The plants need to go to seed to keep them in the landscape. Here, the sides of roads are not mowed until the pods are dried, so that the lupin keeps regenerating.

One thing to remember… if you have one lupin plant, within a few years you will have many- so when harvesting the flower stalks for seeds, keep that in mind.

Lupin do have one negative attribute. They are aphid magnets. They will be covered with them during the flowering season. So, keep them separate from delicate plants that can not survive a massive attach of them.

A field of lupin
has the effect is that of a Monet painting.

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On Friday March 22, Spot and I were able to get in a long beach walk. It had been several weeks since we had been able to go no one. The day was clear, a break in a long line of March storms.

It was cold enough, and blowing hard enough at the house, that I was in my normal three layers of clothing. The beach entrance was clogged with snow, but we burst through to park. Getting out of the car, Spot immediately took off toward the path down to the beach. I followed. It was bright sun, and the glare off of the snow was fierce. As I trudged through the snow, the warmth made me wonder if I had over-dressed.

Upon reaching the edge of the path
I looked up and down to scan the area. It was a beautiful day with sun, snow, sand, and water!

It was dead low tide, and very calm.

There was almost no wave action.
It was very quiet.

We start down the right hand side of the beach,
Spot running ahead.
Up near the edge where sand meets snow,
the sand shows the effects of water freezing and thawing.

Every beach walk has its own theme- and it is not always evident until part way through the walk.
The first clue is a calcified mussel shell,
something not often seen on this beach.

And then there was another mussel shell.

At the far end of the beach the rocks are exposed.
But it is not the super low tide that we have seen in the past-
one can not go around the rocks to the cove beyond.

Spot goes up and over right away.

I take my time, looking at the tide pools in and around the rocks.

The sand patterns, made by ebbing tides, always intrigue me.

As do the patterns of the seaweed on the rocks
and hanging down into the water.

Around March 15th
the sun’s angle changes enough
so that there is what I call
sparkly water.
And suddenly, there it was.

The poles at the end of the beach
are the line of demarcation between the beach and cove beyond.

 

A smooth bit of sand lies just beyond the rocks.

Spot, who had been running up near the snow,
at the top of the beach,
comes to see what I am doing.

We start across the beach
to the far side of the cove.

A mussel shell with
extremely purple coloring catches my eye.

In the gravel further on
is one that is very, very blue.

With every step
there seems to be another intriguing mussel shell.

When we are two thirds of the way across the beach,
they suddenly appear in profusion.
Broken, whole, shattered pieces of them lie on the gravel.

Spot thinks looking at broken shells
is a bore, and comes to urge me to continue!

Looking out at the water
I see a flock of birds floating on the water
that is slightly ruffled by a breeze.
The water is quiet,
the sun very warm.

Spot goes up the seaweed covered rocks.

I stop to look at the seaweed patterns.

The top of the rocks are covered with
iced over water holes and snow,
making it a bit treacherous.

A mussel shell on the rocks,
with attached water weeds and lichen,
almost matches them.

Heading back down the rocks
the beach is spread out before us.
The different colored sands make lovely patterns.

The water is very clear,
the colors almost Caribbean.

We head across the beach,
near the water line.

Spot catches sight of the ducks in the water.

But decides to not give them
the satisfaction of taunting him.

As we go along I spy a lone clam shell,
the shell usually seen,
rather than the mussels.

Further on lays a very small,
but very blue mussel shell.

We climb back over the rocks
that separate the cove from the beach.
The beach seems so wide!

A pale violet mussel shell,
with a small one carefully perched on it,
reminds one of all the others back in the cove.

We head down the beach.
A breeze freshens off of the water.
And then there is the small sound of a lap of water.
The tide has turned.

Walking along I see a broken razor clam.

The bright green of a piece of seaweed stands out from all the neutral colors.

A piece of ribbon seaweed lays partially buried in the sand.

The stream bed at the corner of the beach,
changes weekly.
Today it is wide, and shallow.

A lobster trap, broken from it’s mooring,
has washed up,
and lies half buried in the snow and sand.

The huge piled up banks of seaweed,
swept in during the harsh storms of February,
have all but disappeared.

Spot heads down the left hand side of the beach.

There are birds near the shore.

A lone gull,
perched on a rock,
attracts Spots attention.

The wind on this end of the beach
is strong and cold.
I am glad I have my three layers of clothing!

We start back,
and find some gull’s tracks in the sand.

At the acute turn of the beach
the colors of the water are very unusual
with clear pale blues and soft golden hues.

Walking back,
the glare from the sun,
makes it difficult to see Spot.

Up near the stream,
that formed when the marsh flooded this winter,
are more of the patterns from the freezing and thawing of the sand.

A lone slipper shell lies on the beach.

A clump of seaweed is tangled
with things that have survived the winter-
oak leaves and acorns are seen.

We make our second pass down the right hand side of the beach.
The angle of the sun lights up all of the mica in the sand.

Every hollow around every stone and shell
refracts the light.

The sand patterns are made even more intriguing and dramatic
by the gleam and glitter of the mica.

At the end of the beach Spot stops and looks out.

The beach curves ahead of us as we head back.
The water pale and pretty.

Behind the colors are deep and rich.

As we leave
snow, sand, and water
sparkle in the sun.

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