12 RANUNCULACE^E. (CROWFOOT FAMILY.) 



1. C. trifolia, Salisb. (TUREE-LEAVED GOLDTHREAD.) Leaflets 3, 

 ol>ovute-wedge-form, sharply toothed, obscurely 3-lobed; scape I -flowered. 

 Bcv^s, abundant northward ; extending south to Maryland along the mountains. 

 May. Root of long, bright yellow, bitter fibres. Leaves evergreen, shining. 

 Scape naked, slender, 3' -5' high. (Eu.) 



14. HELL^BORUS, L. HELLEBORK. 



Sepals 5, petal-like or greenish, persistent. Petals 8-10, very small, tuba- 

 Jar, 2-lippcd. Pistils 3 - 10, sessile, forming coriaceous many -seeded pods. 

 Perennial herbs of the Old World, with ample palmate or peclate leaves, and 

 large, solitary, nodding, early vernal flowers. (Name from tXflv, to injure, and 

 pfopd, food, from their well-known poisonous properties.) 



1. II* vfRiDis, L. (GREEN HELLEBORE.) Root-leaves glabrous, pedate , 

 calyx spreading, greenish. Near Brooklyn and Jamaica, Long Island. (Adv. 

 from Eu.) 



15. AQUILECIA, Tourn. COLUMBINE. 



Sepals 5, regular, colored like the petals. Petals 5, all alike, with a short 

 spreading lip, produced backwards into large hollow spurs, much longer than 

 the calyx. Pistils 5, with slender styles. Pods erect, many-seeded. Peren- 

 nials, with 2 - 3-tcrnatcly compound leaves, the leaflets lobed. Flowers large 

 and showy, terminating the branches. (Name from aijuila, an eagle, from some 

 fancied resemblance of the spurs to talons.) 



1. A. Canadensis, L. (WILD COLUMBINE.) Spurs inflated, sud- 

 denly contracted towards the tip, nca-ly straight; stamens and styles longer 

 than the ovate sepals. Rocks, common. April -June. Flowers 2' long, 

 scarlet, yellow inside, nodding, so that the spurs turn upward, but thu stalk be- 

 comes upright in fruit. More delicate and graceful than the 



A. VULGXRIS, L., the common GARDEN COLUMBINE, from the Old World, 

 which is beginning to escape from cultivation in some places. 



16. DELPHINIUM, Tourn. LARKSPUR. 



Sefals 5, irregular, petal-like; the upper one prolonged into a spur at the 

 base. Petals 4, irregular, the upper pair continued backwards into long spura 

 which arc enclosed in the spur of the calyx; the lower pair with short claws: 

 rarely only 2 united into one. Pistils 1-5, forming many-seeded pods in 

 fruit. Leaves pal mately divided or cut. Flowers in terminal racemes. (Name 

 from Del phi ii, in allusion to the shape of the flower, which is sometimes not un- 

 like the classical figures of the dolphin.) 



1. D. cxaltittum, Ait. (TALL LARKSPUR.) Leaves deeply 3-5- 

 cli'ft ; the divisions narrow wedge-form, diverging, 3-clcft at the apex, acute; 

 nicunts mnul-likc, panicled, masy-flavxred ; spur straight; jxxls 3, f/rr/. 1J. 

 Rich soil, Ponn. to Michigan, and southward. July. Stem 2 C -5 high Low- 

 er leaves 4' - ft ' broad. Flowers purplish-blue, downy. 



