A Rainbow of Peas

There are lots of things in flower just now, but our walk today at Iona Beach in Richmond was dominated by peas. Plants in the Pea Family, the Leguminosae or Fabaceae. This is the same family of plants that include garden peas, pole beans, and sweet peas. It was these 'legumes' that coloured the landscape today.

First, there was Scotch broom (Cytisus scoparius), an introduced and highly invasive European species--and it was everywhere. Large shrubs (up to 3 m tall) packed with brilliant yellow flowers were abundant around the ponds and throughout the sandspit. It really dominated the landscape. It was on broom that we saw our only bumblebee of the day: the yellow-faced bumblebee (Bombus vosnesenskii).

Then there was the native beach pea (Lathyrus japonicus var. maritimus), a pretty, low growing, purple-flowered pea with grasping tendrils that was fairly abundant. Although there was lots of it, it was much more subdued in the landscape. Small patches dotting the sand in the midst of patches of large-headed sedge (Carex macrocephala).

Finally, there were early-flowering, blue lupines--there were only a few of these and they ranged in size from one foot tall to four feet tall. These looked similar to the native streambank lupine (Lupinus rivularis) which is in flower just now in the Fraser delta, with erect red, hollow stems, but the stems had long shaggy hairs. They were located not far from the ponds, and most likely these are descendants of the lupines that were planted around the ponds a few years ago, and a few have made it into adjacent sandy meadows.

What each of these species shares are typical 'pea' flowers, assymmetrical in morphology, that eventually produce pea pods of seeds.

Scotch broom (Cytisus scoparius)

Beach pea (Lathyrus japonicus)

Lupine (Lupinus sp.)

Typical pea flowers.