I found a couple of plants, in the middle of nowhere, which seemed to
be lupins. The flower spikes and leaves were both smaller than those
of "garden" lupins. They had a marvelluos scent. Do lupins grow wild?

Chris Bacon wrote:
I found a couple of plants, in the middle of nowhere, which seemed to
be lupins. The flower spikes and leaves were both smaller than those
of "garden" lupins. They had a marvelluos scent. Do lupins grow wild?

Not sure whether it's a native (wild) in the British Isles, but lupin
is also grown as a protein/oleaginous crop, so maybe this could be a
stray seed? Most of those I have seen in fields here (Ireland) are a
deep blue shade.

Cat(h)

They grow wild at Christchurch in Hampshire, they seem to like the sandy
soil near the coast but are a short lived shrub.
Regards Grannie Annie

"Cat(h)" wrote in message
oups.com...

Chris Bacon wrote:
I found a couple of plants, in the middle of nowhere, which seemed to
be lupins. The flower spikes and leaves were both smaller than those
of "garden" lupins. They had a marvelluos scent. Do lupins grow wild?

Not sure whether it's a native (wild) in the British Isles, but lupin
is also grown as a protein/oleaginous crop, so maybe this could be a
stray seed? Most of those I have seen in fields here (Ireland) are a
deep blue shade.

Cat(h)

In article ,
Malcolm writes:
| In article , Chris Bacon
| writes
|
| I found a couple of plants, in the middle of nowhere, which seemed to
| be lupins. The flower spikes and leaves were both smaller than those
| of "garden" lupins. They had a marvelluos scent. Do lupins grow wild?
|
| Yes. Half a dozen different species.

However, almost all garden lupins are Russell hybrids, and do not grow
wild (though they have naturalised themselves in some places). Whether
the smaller lupins were species or naturalised is unclear, but the scent
implies the former. Apparently Russell lupin seeds are poisonous, and
the food crops are other species.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

Following up to Chris Bacon

Do lupins grow wild?

lupinus lupinus moreii can often be found growing wild, it is
often thought of as an escape although it is often now regarded
as more of a recent adaptation to human activity. Unusually,
distribution of the seeds is acheived through a host, common
enough you might say, but uncommon for a specifically human host
to play this role, birds being the norm. In this case collected
specimens drop seeds as the plants are transported between
locations, often after being stolen in much the same way crows
(corvidae) will steal twigs from one another at rookeries. The
seedling then occur around the dwellings of poor people who have
recieved the lupins as unwanted "gifts".

(further reading Moore, Dennis, Your lupins or your life?)
--
Mike Reid
Shetland, Yell and Unst
"http://www.fellwalk.co.uk/skyepics.htm#shetland"

In article ,
Malcolm writes:
|
| To remove any doubt:
|
| Stace lists:
|
| 1. Tree Lupin. Lupinus arboreus
| 2. Russell Lupin. L. x regalis (L. arboreus x L. polyphyllos)
| 2x4. L. x regalis x L. nootkatensis
| 3. Garden Lupin. L. polyphyllus
| 3x4. L. polyphyllus x L. nootkatensis
| 4. Nootka Lupin. L. nootkatensis
| 5. White Lupin. L. albus
| 6. Narrow-leaved Lupin. L. angustifolius.
|
| All are stated as Introduced except Russell Lupin, which is a native.
^^^^^^^
I think that either he or you didn't mean to type that, unless he is
using a new and extremely bizarre meaning of the word "native"!
It is more traditionally called "of garden origin".

If he is, what his his criterion for distinguishing naturalised plants
of garden origin into "introduced" and "native", remembering that the
very concept of "species" is almost meaningless in many such cases,
and that the same cross is usually performed many times in many
countries?


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

Following up to The Reid :

Following up to Chris Bacon

Do lupins grow wild?

lupinus lupinus moreii can often be found growing wild, it is
often thought of as an escape although it is often now regarded
as more of a recent adaptation to human activity. Unusually,
distribution of the seeds is acheived through a host, common
enough you might say, but uncommon for a specifically human host
to play this role, birds being the norm. In this case collected
specimens drop seeds as the plants are transported between
locations, often after being stolen in much the same way crows
(corvidae) will steal twigs from one another at rookeries. The
seedling then occur around the dwellings of poor people who have
recieved the lupins as unwanted "gifts".

(further reading Moore, Dennis, Your lupins or your life?)

"Don't play the slippery eel with me!"
--
Tim C.

Following up to Tim C.

(further reading Moore, Dennis, Your lupins or your life?)

"Don't play the slippery eel with me!"

"dum de dum de dum"

sorry folks, I blame the vibration from the new strimmer or being
out in the sun too much.
--
Mike Reid
Shetland, Yell and Unst
"http://www.fellwalk.co.uk/skyepics.htm#shetland"

Malcolm wrote:
In article Chris Bacon writes
I found a couple of plants, in the middle of nowhere, which seemed to
be lupins. The flower spikes and leaves were both smaller than those
of "garden" lupins. They had a marvelluos scent. Do lupins grow wild?

Yes. Half a dozen different species.

I forgot to mention, these were coloured the yellow of a cowslip
(rather than the yellow of a dandelion), growing in bush form,
maybe 3' across and the same height.

Very interestingly, they did not seem to have suffered from snails!!

Thanks for the question and all the answers it had generated. I've been wanting to ask this myself. My husband was in New Zealand and took photos of drifts of "wild" lupins on the roadsides. He would like to get the same effect in our new patch of garden so planted out two lupin plants hoping they would seed themselves. I was less sure of his chance of success. And the snails are really enjoying their new diet.

In article ,
trin writes:
|
| Thanks for the question and all the answers it had generated. I've been
| wanting to ask this myself. My husband was in New Zealand and took
| photos of drifts of "wild" lupins on the roadsides. He would like to
| get the same effect in our new patch of garden so planted out two lupin
| plants hoping they would seed themselves. I was less sure of his chance
| of success. And the snails are really enjoying their new diet.

What is the soil and location? That could work in the east, on most
poor, well-drained soils, but would be tricky elsewhere. Where you
see lupins self-sown in the UK is often on old piles of gravel and
similar.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

We are in the s/west. Well drained loam but probably good rather than poor. Is rain the problem in the west? This was a sudden whim of his. We will have a biggish area to fill so perhaps its worth a go to see what happens. It may have to be something else rather than lupins.

On 24 Jun 2006 22:21:46 GMT, (Nick Maclaren) wrote:


In article ,
trin writes:
|
| We are in the s/west. Well drained loam but probably good rather than
| poor. Is rain the problem in the west? This was a sudden whim of his.
| We will have a biggish area to fill so perhaps its worth a go to see
| what happens. It may have to be something else rather than lupins.

Yes. Lupins are typically dry terrain plants, adapted to growing in
poor soils that hold water badly. Let him have a go, but you will
almost certainly need something else.

Many of the tips of waste sand and rock from the china clay industry
at St. Austell are planted with tree lupins, acres and acres of them.
The sand is very free draining, and being leguminous they provide
their own nitrogen. The scent when you're in among them on a hot sunny
day is truly overwhelming.


--
Chris

E-mail: christopher[dot]hogg[at]virgin[dot]net

In article ,
Chris Hogg writes:
|
| Many of the tips of waste sand and rock from the china clay industry
| at St. Austell are planted with tree lupins, acres and acres of them.
| The sand is very free draining, and being leguminous they provide
| their own nitrogen. The scent when you're in among them on a hot sunny
| day is truly overwhelming.

Sounds worth a visit :-)



Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

In article ,
Malcolm writes:
|
| I think that either he or you didn't mean to type that, unless he is
| using a new and extremely bizarre meaning of the word "native"!
| It is more traditionally called "of garden origin".
|
| I wish to retract my claim that Stace's use of "native" was certainly an
| error as I have been in contact with the man himself, querying his use
| of it.
|
| He replied saying that there is disagreement among botanists as to what
| can be regarded as a native taxon! For hybrids, his own view is that
| any that arose in the UK can be called native, whether or not its
| parents are native (not least because quite often such hybrids occur
| nowhere else). In the case of the Russell Lupin, although the hybrid
| arose in cultivation, it also did in the wild, and it is this latter
| occurrence that led him to use the term native in the New Flora,
| reinforcing this with the words "spontaneous hybrids".

Thank you. Most interesting. That confirms my view that the term is,
at best, scientifically largely meaningless as it applies to the British
Isles.

Inter alia, a huge number of such hybrids were FIRST crossed in the UK,
but have been INDEPENDENTLY crossed elsewhere. Does a variety of
something grown in the USA, none of whose ancestors have grown in the
British Isles for at least the past 10 million years, count as native
to the British Isles because the first cross of its two parent species
was made here? :-)

And does a Spanish bluebell count as native provided that it has at
least some English bluebell in its ancestry? And would that still be
true if the Englishness was only in its ancestry and not its genes?

And so on ....


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.