Lupinus polyphyllus

L. polyphyllus is a short-lived, perennial, leguminous herb (NOBANIS, 2015), although individuals more than 50 years old are known from New Zealand (Timmins and Mackenzie, 1995). Palmate leaves consist of several leaflets, about 1 cm wide, that are connected to long petioles and form a tuft that is 10-50 cm high (NOBANIS, 2015). Plants resprout easily when damaged (Timmins and Mackenzie, 1995). The root system is large and forms creeping rhizomes below ground that can penetrate to a depth of 30 cm (Chemel’kov‡ and Hejcman, 2012). A flowering plant can form one to several flowering stems 50-150 cm high (NOBANIS, 2015). Each flowering stem contains tens of flowers in a raceme, and flowers open sequentially from the base of the raceme (Haynes and Mesler, 1984). L. polyphyllus has three main flower colour morphs (blue, pink, and white) that vary in frequency among populations (Pohtio and TerŠs, 1995). Hairy, 5 cm long pods contain up to 10 or 12 seeds (NOBANIS, 2015) - colour and pigmentation may vary among individual plants (Aniszewski et al., 2001;S›ber and Ramula, 2013). Seed length is about 4-4.5 mm and seed weight ranges from about 10 mg up to nearly 70 mg (Aniszewski et al., 2001).