Red Rum Lupine

Piercing red and three feet tall, this spire of a flower demands attention as you drive by the median. Sometime when you are walking by, take a closer look to see the endearing little pea-shaped globules that cloak the tall stem. The clusters of color on this Red Rum variety of lupine also show a tinge of white. Butterflies and hummingbirds dote on it. In  Ye Olden Days of Flowers, the lupine got its name for the lupus, or wolf, because of its voracious appetite for sucking resources out of the ground. Alas, Ye Olden Science was wrong, and this plant is great at adding or “fixing” nitrogen to the soil from the air.