AMERICAN WILD FLOWERS 



437 



species being white or red in addition to the better known yellow 

 color. Columbine is one of the most beautiful of our wild flowers, 

 a representatively American plant in that it grows in almost every 

 part of the United States. The common eastern columbine has 

 scarlet nodding flowers, each consisting of five petal-like sepals 

 between which the petals project backwards as long spurs. As in 

 the buttercup the leaves are divided into segments and lobed. 

 Baneberry species are found from coast to coast; they have com- 

 pound leaves and globular clusters of small white flowers, each 



! 



A B C 



Fig. 262. — Other flowers in the Buttercup Family lack petals; such include the 

 anemones (A), marsh marigold (B), meadow rue (G). 



with three to five sepals which fall ofl" and leave a flower of narrow 

 petals and conspicuous white stamens. The peonies are pre- 

 dominantly European and Asiatic plants but there is one species 

 native of the Pacific coast. This western peony has compound 

 leaves and flowers which bear little resemblance to the large- 

 flowered garden peonies; each flower consists of five or six green- 

 ish red sepals and a similar number of reddish brown petals. The 

 LARKSPURS are a large genus of plants common to the north 

 temperate zone; like other members of the Buttercup Family 

 the leaves are lobed or divided into segments. The flowers occur 

 in showy terminal clusters, each flower with five sepals, one of 

 which forms a spur, and petals of which the posterior ones are 



