Lupins and Alpine Sweetvetch bloom together.

Lupinus, commonly known as Lupins or lupines (North America), is a genus in the legume family (Fabaceae). The species are mostly herbaceous perennial plants 0.3–1.5 m (0.98–4.9 ft) tall, but some are annual plants and a few are shrubs up to 3 m (10 ft) tall—see also bush lupin—with one species (Lupinus jaimehintoniana from the Mexican state of Oaxaca) a tree up to 8 m (26 ft) high with a trunk 20 cm (7.9 in) in diameter. They have a characteristic and easily recognised leaf shape, with soft green to grey-green leaves which in many species bear silvery hairs, often densely so. The leaf blades are usually palmately divided into 5–28 leaflets or reduced to a single leaflet in a few species of the southeastern United States. The flowers are produced in dense or open whorls on an erect spike, each flower 1–2 cm long, with a typical peaflower shape with an upper ‘standard’ or ‘banner’, two lateral ‘wings’ and two lower petals fused as a ‘keel’. Due to the flower shape, several species are known as bluebonnets or quaker bonnets. The fruit is a pod containing several seeds.

Alpine Sweetvetch, or Hedysarum alpinum is also known as – Alpine Hedysarum, American Hedysarum, Bear-root, Hedysarum, Licoriceroot, Sweet-broom, Sweet Vetch. Hedysarum leaves are odd-pinnate, with entire leaflets (no notches or indentations). The stipules are free or connate, and stipels (secondary stipules) are absent. The inflorescences are peduncled racemes or heads. Bracts are small, with bracteoles below the calyx, and calyx teeth subequal. The petals are pink, purplish, yellow, or whitish. Vexillum is longer than the wings, with an obtuse keel longer or rarely shorter than the wings. Stamens are diadelphous, 9+1, and anthers uniform. Ovary is 2-8-ovuled. Fruit is a lomentum, with segments glabrous, pubescent, bristly, or spiny.

Location: Nanton, Alberta, Canada

I use a Canon PowerShot SX20IS and “what I see is what it is”.

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