Stinging Lupine

Most people have good feelings about lupines, mostly because they are accustomed to seeing their lovely bluish flowers along roadsides and in dry stream beds. It may come as a shock the first time a person touches a stinging lupine. The leaves and stems are covered with dozens of very prickly hairs. Touch them and you may well feel like you’ve been stung.

The stinging lupine is known to exist everywhere in San Diego County except the desert. The stinging lupine pictured below is an exception. It was photographed a few yards northwest of the first crossing of Coyote Creek.