PlantSnap Photos of the Week 2020

Black bear cub sniffing purple Lupine plant

Black bear cub sniffing purple Lupine plant

Lupinus, commonly known as lupin or lupine, is a genus of flowering plants in the legume family Fabaceae. The genus includes over 199 species, with centers of diversity in North and South America. Smaller centers occur in North Africa and the Mediterranean. They are widely cultivated, both as a food source and as ornamental plants, although in New Zealand’s South Island, introduced lupins are viewed as a severe environmental threat

The species are mostly herbaceous perennial plants 0.3–1.5 m (0.98–4.92 ft) tall, but some are annual plants and a few are shrubs up to 3 m (9.8 ft) tall. An exception is the chamis de monte (Lupinus jaimehintoniana) of Oaxaca in Mexico, which is a tree up to 8 m (26 ft) tall. Lupins have soft green to grey-green leaves which may be coated in silvery hairs, often densely so.

The leaf blades are usually palmately divided into five to 28 leaflets, or reduced to a single leaflet in a few species of the southeastern United States and eastern South America. The flowers are produced in dense or open whorls on an erect spike, each flower 1–2 cm long. The pea-like flowers have an upper standard, or banner, two lateral wings, and two lower petals fused into a keel.

The flower shape has inspired common names such as bluebonnets and quaker bonnets. The fruit is a pod containing several seeds that weigh on average 24,8 mg each

Some lupins contain certain secondary compounds, including isoflavones and toxic alkaloids, such as lupinine and sparteine. With early detection, these can be removed through processing, although lupins containing these elements are not usually selected for food-grade products.

A risk of lupine allergy exists in patients allergic to peanuts. Most lupin reactions reported have been in people with peanut allergy. Because of the cross-allergenicity of peanut and lupin, the European Commission, as of 2006, has required that food labels indicate the presence of “lupin and products thereof” in food.

Many annual species of lupins are used in agriculture and most of them have Mediterranean origin. While originally cultivated as a green manure or forage, lupins are increasingly grown for their seeds, which can be used as an alternative to soybeans. Sweet (low alkaloid) lupins are highly regarded as a stock feed, particularly for ruminants, but also for pigs and poultry and more recently as an ingredient in aqua-feeds.

The market for lupin seeds for human food is currently small, but researchers believe it has great potential.

Lupin seeds are considered “superior” to soybeans in certain applications and evidence is increasing for their potential health benefits. They contain similar protein to soybean, but less fat. As a food source, they are gluten-free and high in dietary fiber, amino acids, and antioxidants, and they are considered to be prebiotic. About 85% of the world’s lupin seeds are grown in Western Australia.

Three Mediterranean species of lupin, blue (narrow-leafed) lupin, white lupin, and yellow lupin, are widely cultivated for livestock and poultry feed.

Like other legumes, they can fix nitrogen from the atmosphere into ammonia via a rhizobium–root nodule symbiosis, fertilizing the soil for other plants. This adaptation allows lupins to be tolerant of infertile soils and capable of pioneering change in barren and poor-quality soils.