The Lupine plant grows all over the BC coast in great numbers. The flower is a herbaceous perennial, up to 75 cm tall. The leaves are divided into 10 to 15 narrowly oblong leaflets. The leaflets are semi-smooth above, and hairy beneath. Their bonnet-shaped flowers are born in racemes on a single-center stalk that is up to 25 cm long. The flowers bloom in early to mid-summer. They have a wide range of colours from deep blue, purple, light blue, lavender, rose, pink, yellow, and white.
The fruit pod is about 2.5 cm long containing several somewhat flattened seeds that are cream-coloured and irregularly circular, and no more than 1 cm in diameter.
They thrive in dry open fields and woodland areas, you can see them along all the highways of the coastal region of BC in very thick patches. Lupine is poisonous to many animals. Poisoning varies depending on lupine species and varieties, and it is difficult to pinpoint a specific plant or animal since different animals become susceptible in different ways under varying range conditions.
Species and taxonomic differentiation between species are insufficiently characterized. Different lupines produce varying syndromes in a given species of livestock.
The advance of mankind into the natural range of the lupine has eliminated much of its viable habitat. The remaining habitat is often the open areas along roadways, which limits the range over which it can reproduce. The lupine does flourish in areas that have been burned by wildfire or the disturbance of road construction. This is because lupine has tough skin covering its seed that needs either abrasion or the heat of a wildfire to break this down. This allows water to enter the seed and start germination. On Vancouver Island, this plant is very common but in other parts of the world, they have been reduced by up to 90%, mainly due to habitat loss.