Lupines here are in the process of growing out of their green spearheads from the bottom up and transforming themselves into luminescent little Christmas trees.
Usually pronounced “LEW-pins,” these plants also are known as Quaker bonnets due to the shape of their flower pods. Their scientific name (Lupinus polyphillus) and common name are derived from the Latin for “wolfish,” due to the plants’ ravenous attacks on their more docile neighbors. They’re members of the pea family. The native wild variety (Lupinus perennis L.) apparently has been extirpated or is extremely rare here.
The lupines shown here are not Maine natives; they reportedly were imported here from western states and even Europe. We’re told by the New England Historical Society that one of the reasons that so many of these plants are found in unusual places throughout Maine is because of the efforts of Hilda Edwards, “The Lupine Lady.”
Hilda reportedly scattered Lupine seeds fanatically in Maine during her extensive travels as a summer resident here. Among other ways, she apparently did so through the windows of moving cars, while striding our fields, and in walking city blocks where there were patches of greenery or dirt.
A popular and award-winning children’s fictional book was based on Hilda. In it, she was described as Miss Rumphius, the lupine seed scatterer. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on June 2, 2022.) See also the image in the first Comment space.