My whole life I thought this was Lupin. They grew in my Nana Pat's yard, and I thought they were wild. No, turns out this is a Grape Hyacinth-- a bulb. I love them because the little petals are so grape-like and almost rubbery to touch. Maybe they look more like blueberries, but I don't think I was so familiar with a blueberry as a child.A few weeks ago, R's mom pointed out the pink Lupin in our back yard. I thought, "Boy, those don't look like California Lupin at all. They're huge!"
This is our Lupin below; although I didn't take the other two photos. 
So, in fact, they don't look like Hyacinth at all.
I was a little bit right, though. There are many different kinds of Lupin, as it turns out, and the Lupin out here in Massachusetts do look different from the Lupin back home; I just didn't know that the seaside flower I was seeing in California was a Lupin. I can be a bit thick. So here it is: 
I'm sure you all knew this stuff already, but it's news to me so I thought I'd share.
Here's something you may not have known: The Grape Hyacinth and the Lupin have something in common; the Lupin's beans and the Hyacinth's bulbs are both pickled and eaten by the Italians.
I'm not sure I would like those dishes so much, but I'll eat them with ice cream if it'll get me back to Italy. When in Rome . . . .
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