Lupin Means Wolf

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 150833

Potioncat wrote:
><snip>
>
> So everyone of them has several (at least several) scenes that take 
> place in the English Garden. It appears to be a requirement of the 
> genre that the garden and all its flowers are described in great 
> detail. Every garden ever mentioned has lupins.
> <snip>
> So, although I've learned at this site that Lupin is a flower, I 
> didn't realise it was a common flower and that every decent person 
> in the UK grew it in their garden....or else! 
> 
> So, way back when, when PoA was new, and you didn't yet know his 
> name was Remus or that he had a furry problem,  did you see 
> Professor Lupin in the same way that you might have seen Professor 
> Flowers or Profesor Rose? (Both of those are real names.) It just 
> seems to me that if you know it's a flower, the name Lupin makes him 
> seem so much more gentle. Never mind it also sounds like looping, or 
> makes one think: Lupine.
>
Carol responds:
As I'm pretty sure you know (actually, I*know* you know), I'm not
English (do Mayflower ancestors count?), but I do know a bit about
lupine (the flower), which is spelled (in American English, anyway)
with an "e" on the end, exactly like the adjective "lupine"
(wolflike), in both singular and plural forms. The name comes from the
belief that lupine (Latin, Lupinus) had a "wolflike" tendency to eat
up all the nutrients in the soil. I suppose we could say that the
flower resembles Lupin (and wolves and werewolves, if you like) in
being unfairly maligned. OTOH, some species are poisonous to both
humans and animals. (Don't ask *me* to fathom how a lupine's mind works.)

Here's a photo of the variety of lupine that grows along the roadside
in Arizona:

http://www.deancooley.com/~bestinthewest/happytrails/indianhill/ih_hikepic/2.jpg

Carol in Tucson, where the lupine would be blooming if we hadn't had
such a dry winter