98 BUTTERCUP FAMILY 



called "Cowslip" but that name rightly belongs to certain 

 European Primulas. The tender herbage is sometimes used 

 as a salad. 



5. AQUILEGIA. Columbine. 

 Perennial branching herbs with compound leaves and 

 brightly colored flowers in loose leafy-bracted panicles. Sepals 

 5, oblong or oval. Petals 5, produced backward into con- 

 spicuous hollow spurs. Pistil of 5 carpels developing into 5 

 distinct follicles. 



1. A. truncata F. & M. Plant 1 to 3 ft. high, glabrous, or 

 slightly pubescent above. Basal leaves on long petioles, twice 

 ternately compound; leaflets deeply and obtusely lobed. 

 Flowers red, with yellow centers, usually nodding. Spurs 

 Y$ to 1 in. long; sepals somewhat shorter. 



This is the well known Columbine of the Coast Ranges 

 where, however, it is scarcely more common than with us. 

 Its showy flowers nod to one from nearly every moist hill- 

 side, from the foothills well up toward the Alpine Zone. 

 The incurved tips of the spurs contain nectar, which, of 

 course, can be reached only by animals with long tongues. 

 Hummingbirds sometimes visit them and probably aid in 

 cross-pollination while sipping the nectar. Bees, as though 

 less conscientious in regard to paying for their meals, some- 

 times cut through the spurs with their mandibles and thus 

 obtain the nectar, notwithstanding the handicap of their short 

 tongues. 



2. A. pubescens Coville. Plant 18 in. or less high, minutely 

 pubescent on growing parts. Leaves similar to A. truncata 

 but smaller. Flowers yellow, with a tinge of pink, usually 

 erect. Spurs 1 to V/> in. long. 



This is even more handsome than our common species and 

 the flowers, with long downwardly pointing spurs, are much 

 larger. But it is restricted to the neighborhood of timber- 

 line, having been collected in our district only on Mt. Dana 

 and at Mono Pass. It ranges southward to Mineral King, 

 Mt. Whitney, etc. 



6. DELPHINIUM. Larkspur. 

 Perennial herbs with palmately divided leaves and blue or 

 whitish flowers in terminal racemes. Sepals 5, colored, the 

 upper one produced backward as a spur. Petals 4, the upper 

 pair developed backward within the calyx-spur. Stamens 

 numerous. Pistils 3, becoming many-seeded pods. 



