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ED. NOTE from 2026: The story below was first published in 1973, and offers an account of the people who brought the invasive yellow bush lupine — Lupinus arboreus — to Humboldt County, and spread it up and down the dunes and beaches of the county thereafter.

The story below reads as generally laudatory, making it its own historical artifact. Today the consensus — not universally accepted! — is that the lupine is undesirable, being a nasty invasive species that wreaks havoc on native ecosystems. If you’re of that opinion, Friends of the Dunes organizes an annual volunteer event that attempts to keep its continued spread in check. See here for details and volunteer opportunities.

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The barren sand dunes on the north spit of Humboldt Bay posed quite a problem in 1908, when the late George D. Cobb was appointed keeper to open and operate the new fog signal station. The area was wind-swept in both winter and summer and caused the dunes to shift aimlessly.

To alleviate the situation, and to prevent damage, the Lighthouse Department sent in small trees to act as a windbreak around the area.

Mrs. Cobb (Theodora), in a 1956 communication, reported that when she and her husband were at the Presidio in San Francisco in 1908 they gathered yellow lupine seeds on the premises there and brought them to their new station. Cobb’s previous assignment was Fort Point in the San Francisco area. Mrs. Cobb, 93, resides in a Masonic Rest Home in the Bay Area.

The couple planted the lupine around the station on July 1, 1908. Up to this time only species of blue and blue-and-white lupine were native locally. The plants grew and spread around the buildings and nearby dunes holding the sand as expected.

During World War I (1917) the Northwestern Pacific Railroad logs made a nightly visit to the North Jetty with rock loaded during the day at Trinidad. The railroad and track ran from the jetty to Samoa and Trinidad.

The NWP Railroad and the Hammond Lumber Company used the same tracks in Samoa but each had its own railroad from Samoa north up the peninsula. Much vegetation (blackberries, willows and trees) kept the tracks relatively free from sand in this area.

From Samoa, south, there was no vegetation to speak of and sand either covered the tracks periodically or blew the sand under the tracks. These difficulties kept track repairmen quite busy.

It was at this time the government decided lupine along the tracks could be the best answer and hired a peninsula woman, Mrs. Alexander McLean, to head a small group of women to gather and sow the seed. She was assisted by Mrs. James Robertson, Mrs. Eula Wilkerson and Miss Ida Keisner. Mrs. Inga Torgerson (now Mrs. Logan of Arcata) was a schoolgirl and worked only on school holidays.

Mrs. McLean and Mrs. Robertson collected the dry seeds in pods and filled several gunny sacks. Mrs. McLean threshed the seeds and staked out planting areas adjacent to the tracks. Each woman received four dollars a day for her work.

The ladies who planted the seeds rode the empty rock train north each morning with their sacks of seeds and corn planters and soon had the entire right-of-way from Samoa to the jetty sown with lupine. On Thanksgiving Day that year Miss Torgersen took her corn planter and seeds and worked all day in the pouring rain. For this one day she received a double day’s pay of eight dollars.

Today the lupine can be seen spread far beyond the tracks and covering much of the peninsula.

In 1938 the Hammond Lumber Company was logging in the Crannell woods and hauled their logs from Crannell to Clam Beach south to Samoa, an area then known for shifting sand dunes — really no place for a railroad. The company called for volunteers in August to gather seeds for which they would pay one dollar per pound.

Several Samoa boys started picking the seeds only to find it took too long a time to gather a pound of them. They found the sand annoying as it constantly this seeped into their shoes. After a day or two most of them quit.

Two boys decided to stick it out with the help of Andy “Mac” McCormick, brother-in-law of one of the boys. They were Derald Jones of Salyer and Paul Jadro of Fortuna. They gathered the pods and brought them home to Mac who utilized a blanket and the wind from an electric sweeper to separate the seeds from the chaff.

Equipped with coffee cans of seeds the boys made several trips to the warehouse office of Henry Palmrose (uncle of President Robert Palmrose) before the company cried, “Enough.” These seeds were planted by Hammond crews along the tracks and are most showy in May at Clam Beach State Park.

Much discussion has taken place as to the origin of yellow lupine (Lupine arboreus). Sunset’s Western Garden Book lists it as native to California coastal areas.

To substantiate this Dr. Doris Niles, a doctor of botanical science and instructor with the University of California Extension Division at Davis, reported an illustrated manual of California shrubs lists one thousand species of lupine native to the United States. Of these fifty are native to California. Out of the fifty, five are shrubs and include our yellow lupine. The manual lists the shrub as native to the California coast from Santa Barbara northward. Dr. Niles resides in Loleta.

It is surmised that the lupine reached no farther north than the Golden Gate until man intervened. Beside our stands in Humboldt, a Manchester, Mendocino County dairyman secured seeds in San Francisco and planted them around his dairy on the coast many years ago.

The manual further revealed that lupine is native to all continents with the exception of Australia. Our yellow lupine shrub was cultivated at Kensington, England in 1803 from seeds gathered earlier on the California coast.

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