RANUNCULACEA. GL 
the persistent style. Stem, leaf-stalks, and peduncles generally hairy. 
Leaves glabrous, light green, slightly glaucous, on the upper side 
much more so, with the veins transparent. 
Common Colunbire. 
French, Ancolie, Gants de Notre Dame. German, Die Akelei, Narrenkappe. 
The generic name comes from aqui/a, an eagle, to the claws of which the nectaries 
bear some resemblance. The English name from columba, a dove, from a fancied 
likeness to this bird. The beauty of the blossoms of this fanciful and pretty plant has 
long introduced it into our flower-borders, Cultivation produces various colours, and 
the flowers become double in several ways. The form of the nectary seems to bid defiance 
to the bee in search of honey; but the sagacity of this wonderful insect is not to be 
defeated, for, according to Dr. Withering, on finding that he cannot enter, he penetrates 
both calyx and corolla, near the dépdt of the sweet treasure, and thus extracts it without 
further difficulty. In Brown’s “ British Pastorals” we have it recorded that in former 
times a Columbine was the insignia of deserted lovers, but how this originated does not 
appear :— 
“ The Columbine, by lonely wand’rer taken, 
Is then ascribed to such as are forsaken.” 
The whole plant used to be recommended medicinally, but it belongs to a suspicious 
Natural Order, and Linneeus asserts that children have lost their lives by taking an over 
dose of it. 
SUB-TRIBE IIl—DELPHINEA. 
Leaves palmately nerved, or palmately cut or divided. Flowers 
irregular, generally racemose. 
GENUS XI—DELPHINIUM. Linn. 
Sepals 5, petaloid, deciduous, the upper one produced backwards 
into a conical spur, the others without spurs. Corolla of 4 petals, 
either all united together and prolonged backwards into a spur 
which is contained within the hollow spur of the upper sepal, or of 
4 free petals, when the two upper have spurs contained in that of 
the upper sepal, while the two lateral ones are without spurs. 
Carpels 1 or 3 to 6, sessile, becoming at maturity dehiscent follicles, 
not connate at the base. 
Annual or perennial, erect, branched herbs, with alternate pal- 
mately-lobed or -cut leaves. Flowers in terminal racemes, which 
are simple or combined in panicles. 
SuB-Genus I.—PHLEDINIUM. Spach. 
Petals united. Carpels solitary. 
