Lupinus perennis. 5
nine, displayed horizontally, also densely pubescent. Young leaves
folded from the costa inwards. Stipules subulate. Flowers numerous
and very showy, borne on a perpendicular terminal spike, from
four to eight inches long. Calix pubescent, upper segment gibbous
at base, and of a purplish colour; lower one larger, longer, yellow,
tipped with purple. Wings varying in colour, being Berlin-blue,
campanula-purple, or red-lilac-purple, and sometimes bluish-lilae-
purple, variegated with darker stripes of the same colour. Carina
white, or bluish-lilac-purple, tipped with deep auricula-purple. Vex-
illum Berlin-blue, tipped with imperial-purple. Stamens and pistils
greenish-yellow. Anthers orange-yellow. Legume torulose. Grows
in dry woods of sandy soil, and on dry sunny hills of gravelly
soil, from Canada to the most southern section of our country.
Flowers in May.
This beautiful genus contains seven known species indigenous to
the United States, of which the present one is perhaps the most elegant.
Lupinus was so called by Pliny and other ancient writers; and
Professor Martyn is of opinion that the word owes its origin to the
word lupus, a wolf, because plants of this genus | ravage the ground
by overrunning it, after the manner of that animal.” The word is
also supposed by some to be derived from a»*-», grief, a notion which
is supposed to be supported by Virgil’s epithet, tristes lupini, which
he used, not perhaps without a full stretch of the poet’s license,
from the fanciful idea that the acrid juices of the lupin he alluded to,