IRbofcora 



JOURNAL OF 



THE NEW ENGLAND BOTANICAL CLUB 



Vol. 18. August, 1916. No. 212. 



DELPHINIUM CONSOLIDA IN AMERICA, 



WITH A CONSIDERATION OF THE STATUS OF 



DELPHINIUM AJACIS. 



Bayabd Long. 



For at least a century Delphinium Consolida held an almost unin- 

 terrupted and an unchallenged place in the introduced flora of America. 

 In 1814 we find Purshin his Flora noting the " common Lark-spur. . . 



In fields and woods. Pa. and Ya." Nuttall in L818 in his Genera 

 regards it as "naturalized." In Eaton's Manual of Botany, as early 

 as the Fifth Edition of 1829, it is also considered "Naturalized." 

 Torrey and Gray in 1838 record it " In fields and along roadsides; 

 introduced from Europe and almost naturalized." In the First 

 Edition of Gray's Manual in 1848 we find: "D. Consolida, the com- 

 mon annual Garden Larkspur . . . has escaped from gardens into the 

 roadsides in some places." 



This "common annual Garden Larkspur" appears to have been 

 invariably described as having smooth capsules in our earlier American 

 botanies, n fact very evidently due to a faithful copying and recopying 

 of European descriptions of Delphinium Consolida. In 1859, however, 

 Darby described the plant with "Carpels smooth or pubescent" [ but 

 apparently not till 1890 in Watson and Coulter's Edition of Gray's 

 Manual is it recognized that the pubescent-fruited plant escaping 

 from gardens is Delphinium Ajacis, a species well known in Europe. 

 From this time I). Consolida shared its place in American treatments 

 with D. Ajacis. 



i Darhy, Bulimy of the Southern Slates, 207 (1859). 



