Last weekend my daughter & I went on a hike at a local wildflower preserve here in Northern California. Thought I’d share a couple of photos –
There are a bajillion lupines in the genus Lupus, they are part of the pea family. They come in shades of white, yellow, pinks and purples and are found throughout North America. Sky lupine is found in California and Nevada. Our guide told us something interesting about these flowers – see how some have white markings, while others have no white markings? Bees see into the ultraviolet, and are attracted to the white markings on the white-and-purple lupine flowers. After it’s been pollinated, the white part turns magenta-purple and is no longer interesting to the bee. Neat!
In Oregon, the roots of the shore lupine (Lupinus littoralis) were used by Native people for food. I’ll write more about them after I hopefully get some good photos of them this summer.
I haven’t found any ethnobotanical uses for owl clover, but there were several at this wildflower preserve. Usually they are pinkish-purple, but there were some rare white ones out there too.
And finally, just cuz they are so pretty, a photo of some California poppies growing along our local overlook trail in NorCal.