AQr/IT/EGIA- ALPINA. 103 



AQUILEGIA ALPINA. 



Alpine Columbine. 

 Lilinean Class — Polyandiua. Order — Pentagynia. Natural Order — Ranunculaceje. 



Could all the exotic herbaceous plants become, by accident, extinct in this country, 

 and be then subsequently re-introduced after the lapse of twenty or thirty years, 

 we doubt if any of them would excite greater interest than some of the 

 finest of the Columbines. Few of our hardy perennials can boast of a more 

 curious structure, and the habit of all is ornamental, often very graceful ; nor are 

 brilliant, intense, or delicate tints by any means deficient among them. But so 

 much does familiarity with any object blind us to beauties which could not 

 otherwise fail to strike us, that we suppose we run some risk, in this age of 

 bedding plants, of having the correctness of our taste called in question in thus 

 avowing our predilections for this genus. 



In justification of these feelings, let us place before our readers a flower of the 

 magnificent Aquilegia alpina ; observe its fine deep azure blue tint, and its 

 extraordinary size, measuring three inches across its expanded sepals, or wings, 

 as we may most appropriately term them, and then say whether such a plant 

 deserves the neglect it has, for so many years, experienced. We will, however, 

 do the floricultural community the justice to believe that the absence of this and 

 such species as Shinneri, glandulosa, and others from their gardens, is, probably, 

 not attributable to any want of appreciation of their merits, but rather that they 

 are so rarely brought prominently into notice by the Horticultural publications 

 which profess to guide the public taste, that amongst the numerous claimants 

 for admission to the flower-borders they are overlooked. 



We have chosen the A. alpina as an illustration of the genus, both because it is 

 undoubtedly one of the finest species, and also one of those which are least known. 

 It is of dwarf habit, not usually exceeding one foot in height. The stem is 

 slightly pubescent, but not glandular. The leaves are much smaller than the A. 

 vulgaris and the more robust species, but are of the same biternate form, each leaflet 

 being divided into several blunt segments ; the uppermost ones are only three-lobed, 

 and sometimes quite entire, narrow and pointed, those below them presenting an 

 intermediate form. Each stem produces about three flowers, of a beautiful dark 

 blue, and larger than those of most other species. The sepals are of a very broad 

 oval form, tapering towards the point, which appears as if snipt off; they are 

 attached between the petals by a narrow claw nearly half an inch long, and in 

 colour are of rather a darker blue than the petals, but brown at the tip. The 



