The Blue Flower Border 271 



on a dark night you can see it showing a distinct 

 blue in the garden like a blue lambent flame. 



" Larkspur lifting turquoise spires 

 Bluer than the sorcerer's fires." 



Mrs. Milne-Home says her old Scotch gardener 

 called the white Delphinium Elijah's Chariot — a 

 resounding, stately title. Helmet-flower is another 

 name. I think the Larkspur Border, and the Blue 

 Border both gain if a few plants of the pure white 

 Delphinium, especially the variety called the Em- 

 peror, bloom by the blue flowers. In our garden 

 the common blue Larkspur loves to blossom by 

 the side of the white Phlox. A bit of the border is 

 shown on page 162. In another corner of the gar- 

 den the pink and lilac Larkspur should be grown ; 

 for their tints, running into blue, are as varied as 

 those of an opal. 



I have never seen the wild Larkspur which grows 

 so plentifully in our middle Southern states ; but I 

 have seen expanses of our common garden Lark- 

 spur which has run wild. Nor have I seen the 

 glorious fields of Wyoming Larkspur, so poisonous 

 to cattle ; nor the magnificent Larkspur, eight feet 

 high, described so radiantly to us by John Muir, 

 which blues those wonders of nature, the hanging 

 meadow gardens of California. 



I am inclined to believe that Lobelia is the least 

 pleasing blue flower that blossoms. I never see it 

 in any place or juxtaposition that it satisfies me. 

 When you take a single flower of it in your hand, 

 its single little delicate bloom is really just as pretty 



