Lupinus nanusDouglas ex Benth.

Sky Lupine

WFO wfo-0000174742 Accepted WFO 2026-06 6 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–f

Lupinus nanus, photographed by paulexcoff
fig. a paulexcoff, CC BY-SA 4.0 / 2022-04-10 / obs. 195431470
Lupinus nanus, photographed by L. Wood
fig. b L. Wood, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 184715272
Lupinus nanus, photographed by Emily Langdon-Lassagne
fig. c Emily Langdon-Lassagne, CC0 1.0 / obs. 198727432
Lupinus nanus, photographed by Henrik Kibak
fig. d Henrik Kibak, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 126826632
Lupinus nanus, photographed by Dutza K.
fig. e Dutza K., CC BY 4.0 / obs. 180041095
Lupinus nanus, photographed by rappman
fig. f rappman, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 123495543

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Confused withby our own model

These are not lookalikes we guessed at. Each one is a species our identification model genuinely mistook for this plant, and how many times. The error rate is published.

Flowering n = 1,366 observations

Peak flowering in Apr, from 1,366 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 22 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Lupinus apricus Greene
  • Lupinus blaisdellii Eastw.
  • Lupinus nanus f. albus Voss
  • Lupinus nanus f. lilacinus (T.Moore) Voss
  • Lupinus nanus subsp. latifolius (Benth. ex Torr.) D.B.Dunn
  • Lupinus nanus subsp. menkerae (C.P.Sm.) D.B.Dunn
  • Lupinus nanus var. albococcineus Wyman & Harshb.
  • Lupinus nanus var. albus Orcutt
  • Lupinus nanus var. apricus (Greene) C.P.Sm.
  • Lupinus nanus var. coelestinus J.Carter ex J.Dix
  • Lupinus nanus var. latifolius Benth. ex Torr.
  • Lupinus nanus var. lilacinus T.Moore
  • Lupinus nanus var. maritimus Hoover
  • Lupinus nanus var. menkerae C.P.Sm.
  • Lupinus nanus var. nanus
  • Lupinus nanus var. vallicola (A.Heller) C.P.Sm.
  • Lupinus odoratus F.Dietr.
  • Lupinus persistens A.Heller
  • Lupinus sparsiflorus Torr.
  • Lupinus vallicola A.Heller
  • Lupinus vallicola subsp. apricus (Greene) D.B.Dunn
  • Lupinus vallicola var. apricus (Greene) C.P.Sm.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice, no toxicity claim and no native range, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.