Yellow Lupine

'Yellow Lupine', also known as 'Annual Yellow Lupine' and 'European Yellow Lupine', is a native to the Mediterranean region of Southern Europe and commonly found growing on mild sandy and volcanic soils. As a wildflower, it is widespread throughout the coastal areas of the western part of the Iberian Peninsula, Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria, on the islands of Corsica, Sardinia and Sicily, and in Southern Italy.^[1] In other parts of the world where it was cultivated, it has become naturalized.

The plants grow to a height of up to thirty inches, a foot in diameter, have strong taproots, and densely hairy stalks. The leaves are compound and palmate with nine to eleven leaflets each. It flowers in whorls around a spike-like stalk, typically from June to July with its seed pods ripening from August to September.

'Yellow Lupine' requires sunny locations to thrive, prefers moist, well-drained soils, but as a nitrogen-fixing legume, it can tolerate nutritionally poor locations.