What a quandary. June is the month of the lupine here in Maine. Everywhere you look, the countryside is lit up like fire with millions upon millions of lupines. Most are brilliant purple, although some are pink and blue. Every year I hunger to see the lupine because I know that the warm weather has truly arrived, and the dog days of summer are soon to follow.
But it’s a quandary.
For all of its good qualities, the lupine has bad qualities as
well. That the lupine is beautiful and
creates a heavenly vision, no one can argue.
It is also extremely prolific and helps to hold soil in place in
disturbed areas. The bees love it and it
helps to feed them. It also improves
soil fertility by fixing atmospheric nitrogen in its root nodules. It’s wonderful for helping to colonize
volcanic ash and turn an otherwise inhospitable area into a field of greenery.
 |
| A field of lupines. |
But it comes at a price because the lupine has a dark side. Lupine grows so very quickly that it takes
over areas at an alarming rate and excludes many plants, especially those that
grow slowly. One of those slow-growing
plants happens to be native milkweed, the only
source of food for the monarch butterfly.
Maine
is at the northern end of the 2,000-mile-long migration of the monarch
butterfly, and they really need that milkweed when they get here. Lupine is also known to make farm animals
sick and decreases the value of hay if it is in any great amount in a
field. Many of the native grasses and
lichens in Maine
that thrive in poor soil find the soil too fertile near lupines. Did you ever think that too-fertile soil
would be a problem? It can be.
And then there’s the blueberry. Blueberries are the biggest crop in Maine, with potatoes
playing a close second. It’s those
special little tiny wild Maine
blueberries--you know the ones that people from away pay exorbitant amounts to
get? Those indescribably delicious,
nutritionally loaded little wild blueberries that favor the cold Maine climate? When lupine gets a hold of their fields, it
can wreak havoc. Areas that were once
covered with blueberries can disappear quickly because of the lupine.
There are some rare grasses that grow only in Maine and nowhere else
in the world, such as the Orono sedge.
Who knows what we might someday learn from this rare grass? Don’t forget that wheat is also a grass. Maybe learning the unique qualities of
grasses which have been untouched by time could someday help us in improving
wheat in a sustainable and healthy way. But
the lupine is edging the Orono sedge out slowly but surely. And that’s just one of the unique plants that
grow only in cold-loving Maine.
Still . . . I can’t help but adore the lupine. My eyes are drawn to its fantastic
beauty. I’m afraid this photo doesn’t
nearly capture the stunning qualities of the lupine up close and personal. There has to be a way that we, as good
stewards of the land, can allow the lupine to flourish and yet safeguard the
other rare beauties of Maine. For now, I will just enjoy the sight of the
lupine, but I will not spread its seed (as so many people mistakenly do out of
romantic fantasies) or purposely cultivate it.
It is meant to be admired from afar.
