Lupins

May 6th, 2008

Botanical Name: Lupinus albus (Linn.)

Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Magnoliophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Subclass: Rosidae
(unranked) Eurosids I
Order: Fabales
Subfamily: Faboideae
Tribe: Genisteae
Subtribe: Lupininae
Genus: Lupinus

Family: N.O. Leguminosae/Fabaceae
Other Names:lupine,
Synonyms:French) Lupin. (German) Wolfsbohne.
Parts Used: Seeds, herb.
Habitat:The Lupinus are a large genus of handsome plants, represented in Europe, Asia and North and South America.

Description:The genus comprises between 200-600 species, with major centers of diversity in South America and western North America - subgen.Platycarpos) and subgen. Lupinus - in the Mediterranean region and AfricaThe species are mostly herbaceous perennial plants 0.3-1.5 m (1-5 ft) tall, but some are annual plants and a few are shrubs up to 3 m (10 ft) tall - see also bush lupin -, with one species (Lupinus jaimehintoniana, from the Mexican state of Oaxaca) a tree up to 8 m high with a trunk 20 cm (8 in) in diameter. They have a characteristic and easily recognised leaf shape, with soft green to grey-green leaves which in many species bear silvery hairs, often densely so. The leaf blades are usually palmately divided into 5–28 leaflets or reduced to a single leaflet in a few species of the southeastern United States. The flowers are produced in dense or open whorls on an erect spike, each flower 1-2 cm long, with a typical peaflower shape with an upper ’standard’, two lateral ‘wings’ and two lower petals fused as a ‘keel’. Due to the flower shape, several species are known as bluebonnets or quaker bonnets. The fruit is a pod containing several seeds.

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Like most members of their family, lupins can fix nitrogen from the atmosphere into ammonia, fertilizing the soil for other plants. The genus Lupinus is nodulated by Bradyrhizobium soil bacteria[2]. Some species have a long central tap roots or proteoid roots.

A number of the species are cultivated only as ornamental plants, but others are grown for fodder, and if not over-fed, are found highly nutritive and wholesome. If the seeds of certain species are eaten in a more or less mature condition, poisoning is liable to occur, great numbers of animals sometimes being affected. These poisoning accidents have occurred in Europe and in the United States.

The species best known - as fodder - is the WHITE LUPIN of cultivation, Lupinus albus (Linn.) (French, Lupin; German, Wolfsbohne), native of Southern Europe and adjacent Asia, a plant of about 2 feet high, with leaves cut palmately into five or seven divisions, 1 to 2 inches long, smooth above, and white, hairy, beneath. The flowers are in terminal racemes, on short footstalks, white and rather large, the pod 3 to 4 inches long, flattish, containing three to six white, circular, flattened seeds, which have a bitter taste.

History: It is probably of Egyptian or East Mediterranean origin, and has been cultivated since the days of the ancient Egyptians. It is now very extensively used in Italy and Sicily, for forage, for ploughing-in to enrich the land, and for its seeds.

John Parkinson attributed wonderful virtues to the plant.

Many women, he says ‘doe use the meale of Lupines mingled with the gall of a goate and some juyce of Lemons to make into a forme of a soft ointment.’ He says that the burning of Lupin seeds drives away gnats.

Culpepper says they are governed by Mars in Ares:
‘The seeds, somewhat bitter in taste, opening and cleansing, good to destroy worms. Outwardly they are used against deformities of the skin, scabby ulcers, scald heads, and other cutaneous distempers.’
This Lupin was cultivated by the Romans as an article of food. Pliny says:
‘No kind of fodder is more wholesome and light of digestion than the White Lupine, when eaten dry. If taken commonly at meals, it will contribute a fresh colour and a cheerful countenance.’
Virgil, however, Dr. Fernie tells us (Herbal Simples, 1897), designated it ‘tristis Lupinus,’ the sad Lupine. Dr. Fernie further states:
‘The seeds were used as pieces of money by Roman actors in their plays and comedies, whence came the saying “nummus lupinus” - a spurious bit of money.’
The YELLOW LUPIN, also a native of Southern Europe and Western Asia, is called Lupin luteus from its yellow flowers. The BLUEFLOWERED SPECIES of the North-eastern United States is Lupinus perennis (Linn.), the WILD or BLUE BEAN. In the Western United and southward into the Andes, the species are very numerous.

Cultivation: If grown from seed, Lupins do not often come true to type, but if propagated, they will remain true. They must be isolated, owing to insects which might cross the pollen.

Lupins cross readily, hence isolation for propagation is absolutely necessary.

To intensify their colouring, sulphate of ammonia and sulphate of iron may both be employed.

Climatic conditions also more or less affect their colouring.

In a recent note in The Western Gazette (May 18, 1923) Lupins were spoken of as probably the best crop for light land, such as the poor land on the Suffolk coast, where Lupin growing is extending, as also on similar land in the northern part of Nottinghamshire.

In Suffolk the Blue Lupin is the local variety, and anyone travelling through that country in July will see whole fields devoted to it.

The great value of the plant lies in its capacity for growing luxuriantly on land which is so light and sandy that hardly anything else will thrive. Being a leguminous crop, it assimilates the free nitrogen of the air, greatly enriching the soil; and on light land it is probably quite the best plant we have for green manuring.

Constituents: Lupins contain significant amounts of certain secondary compounds like isoflavones and toxic alkaloids, e.g. lupinine. The bitter principle Lupinin is a glucoside occurring in yellowish needles. On boiling with dilute acids, it is decomposed into Lupigenin and a fermentable glucose.

Willstatter described the following alkaloids as occurring in the different species: Lupinine, a crystalline powder and Lupinidine, a syrupy liquid in LUPINUS LUTEUS and L. NIGER. Lupanine in L. ALBUS, L. ANGUSTIFOLIUS and L. PERENNIS, a pale yellow, syrupy fluid of an intensely bitter taste. E. Schmidt affirmed that the alkaloid of the seeds of L. albus is not the same as that of the herbage. A carbohydrate analogous to dextrin has been discovered in L. luteus.

According to Schwartz (1906) the seeds of LUPINUS ARABICUS contain a crystalline substance to which he gave the name of Magolan, which is a useful remedy in diabetes mellitus.

Medicinal Action and Uses: The bruised seeds of White Lupine, after soaking in water, are sometimes used as an external application to ulcers, etc., and internally are said to be anthelmintic, diuretic and emmenagogue.

In 1917 a ‘Lupin’ banquet was given in Hamburg at a botanical gathering, at which a German Professor, Dr. Thoms, described the multifarious uses to which the Lupin might be put. At a table covered with a tablecloth of Lupin fibre, Lupin soup was served; after the soup came Lupin beefsteak, roasted in Lupin oil and seasoned with Lupin extract, then bread containing 20 per cent of Lupin, Lupin margarine and cheese of Lupin albumen, and finally Lupin liqueur and Lupin coffee. Lupin soap served for washing the hands, while Lupin-fibre paper and envelopes with Lupin adhesive were available for writing.

The yellow legume seeds of lupins, commonly called lupin beans, were quite popular with the Romans and they spread the cultivation of them throughout the Roman Empire; hence common names like lupini in Romance languages. Lupin beans are commonly sold in a salty solution in jars (like olives and pickles) and can be eaten with or without the skin. Lupins are also cultivated as forage and grain legumes.

Today, lupini dishes are most commonly found in Mediterranean countries, especially in Portugal, Egypt, and Italy, and also in Brazil and in Spanish Harlem, where they are popularly consumed with beer. The Andean variety of this bean is from the Andean Lupin (tarwi, L. mutabilis) and was a widespread food in the Incan Empire. The Andean Lupin and the Mediterranean L. albus (White Lupin), L. angustifolius (Blue Lupin)[3] and Lupinus hirsutus[4] are also edible after soaking the seeds for some days in salted water[5]. They are known as altramuz in Spain and Argentina. In Portuguese the lupin beans are known as tremoços, and in Antalya (Turkey) as tirmis[verification needed]. Lupins were also used by Native Americans in North America, e.g. the Yavapai people.

These lupins are referred to as sweet lupins because they contain smaller amounts of toxic alkaloids than the bitter lupin varieties. Newly bred variants of sweet lupins are grown extensively in Germany; they lack any bitter taste and require no soaking in salt solution. The seeds are used for different foods from vegan sausages to lupin-tofu or baking-enhancing lupin flour. Given that lupin seeds have the full range of essential amino acids and that they, contrary to soy, can be grown in more temperate to cool climates, lupins are becoming increasingly recognized as a cash crop alternative to soy.

Lupin milk is a milk substitute made from lupin protein.

Three Mediterranean species of lupin, Blue Lupin, White Lupin and Yellow Lupin (L. luteus) are widely cultivated for livestock and poultry feed. Both sweet and bitter lupins in feed can cause livestock poisoning. Lupin poisoning is a nervous syndrome caused by alkaloids in bitter lupins, similar to neurolathyrism. Mycotoxic lupinosis is a disease caused by lupin material that is infected with the fungus Diaporthe toxica[6]; the fungus produces mycotoxins called phomopsins, which cause liver damage.

On 22 December 2006, the European Commission submitted directive 2006/142/EC, which amends the EU foodstuff allergen list to include “lupin and products thereof”.

Other Species:
L. arboreus (the Tree Lupin), from California and Oregon, will, when well trained, produce a branching stem several feet in height that will live through four or five years, forming a trunk of light soft wood of the thickness of a man’s arm.

L. polyphyllus and a few allied species from the same country are tall, erect, herbaceous perennials with very handsome richlycoloured spikes of flowers, which have become permanent inmates of our gardens.

Selected species:

Lupinus albicaulis – Sickle-keel Lupin
Lupinus albifrons – Silver Bush Lupin
Lupinus albus – White Lupin
Lupinus × alpestris
Lupinus angustifolius – Blue Lupin or Narrowleaf Lupin
Lupinus arboreus – Yellow Bush Lupin or Tree Lupin
Lupinus arbustus – Longspur Lupin
Lupinus arcticus – Arctic Lupin
Lupinus argenteus – Silvery Lupin
Lupinus argenteus var. palmeri
Lupinus aridorum – Scrub Lupin
Lupinus arizonicus – Arizona Lupin
Lupinus benthamii
Lupinus bicolor – Miniature Lupin, Bicolor Lupin or Lindley’s (Annual) Lupin
Lupinus bingenensis – Bingen Lupin
Lupinus burkei – Burke’s Lupin
Lupinus caespitosus – Stemless Dwarf Lupin
Lupinus caudatus – Kellogg’s Spurred Lupin
Lupinus chamissonis – Chamisso Bush Lupin
Lupinus concinnus
Lupinus cosentinii
Lupinus diffusus – Spreading Lupin, Oak Ridge Lupin or Sky-blue Lupin
Lupinus excubitus – Grape Soda Lupin
Lupinus foliolosus
Lupinus formosus – Summer Lupin
Lupinus havardii
Lupinus hirsutus
Lupinus hirsutissimus
Lupinus jaimehintoniana
Lupinus kuntii
Lupinus kuschei – Yukon Lupin
Lupinus latifolius – Broadleaf Lupin
Lupinus latifolius var. barbatus – Klamath Lupin or Bearded Lupin
Lupinus lepidus – Prairie Lupin
Lupinus leucophyllus – Woolly-leaf Lupin
Lupinus littoralis – Seashore Lupin
Lupinus longifolius – Longleaf Bush Lupin
Lupinus luteus – Yellow Lupin
Lupinus lyallii – Lyall’s Lupin
Lupinus macbrideanus
Lupinus michelianus

Disclaimer:
The information presented herein is intended for educational purposes only. Individual results may vary, and before using any supplements, it is always advisable to consult with your own health care provider

Resources:
http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/l/lupins50.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lupin