''Lupinus guadalupensis'' is a rare species of

lupin ''Lupinus'', commonly known as lupin, lupine, or regionally bluebonnet etc., is a genus of plants in the legume family Fabaceae. The genus includes over 199 species, with centers of diversity in North and South America. Smaller centers occur ...

e known by the common name Guadalupe Island lupine. It is known only from San Clemente Island, one of the

Channel Islands of California The Channel Islands () are an eight-island archipelago located within the Southern California Bight in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of California. The four Northern Channel Islands are part of the Transverse Ranges geologic province, and ...

, and

Guadalupe Island Guadalupe Island ( es, Isla Guadalupe, link=no) is a volcanic island located off the western coast of Mexico's Baja California Peninsula and about southwest of the city of Ensenada in the state of Baja California, in the Pacific Ocean. The ...

off the coast of

Baja California Baja California (; 'Lower California'), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California), is a state in Mexico. It is the northernmost and westernmost of the 32 federal entities of Mex ...

. It is a member of the

coastal scrub Coastal sage scrub, also known as coastal scrub, CSS, or soft chaparral, is a low scrubland plant community of the California coastal sage and chaparral subecoregion, found in coastal California and northwestern coastal Baja California. It is ...

growing alongside other island endemics and more common plants. This is an annual herb growing 20 to 60 centimeters high. Each palmate leaf is made up of 7 to 9 narrow leaflets up to 5 centimeters long and just a few millimeters wide, sometimes linear in shape. The

inflorescence An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed o ...

bears whorls of flowers each about a centimeter long and blue in color with a white banner patch which may fade pink. The fruit is a very hairy

legume A legume () is a plant in the family Fabaceae (or Leguminosae), or the fruit or seed of such a plant. When used as a dry grain, the seed is also called a pulse. Legumes are grown agriculturally, primarily for human consumption, for livestock f ...

pod up to 6 centimeters long and about one wide. It contains 6 to 8 seeds.

External links

Jepson Manual TreatmentPhoto gallery
guadalupensis Flora of California Flora of Baja California Flora of Mexican Pacific Islands Plants described in 1885 Flora without expected TNC conservation status {{Lupinus-stub