292 GAKDEN PLANTS. PART II. 



flowers, but is sometimes cultivated for its graceful foliage and 

 the numerous singular inflated seed-vessels it bears ; seed may 

 be sown at any season. 



RANUNCULACE.E. 

 Adonis. 



A. autumnalis FLOS ADONIS PHEASANT'S EYE. A cheerful 

 little plant, with dense foliage of deep-green, finely-divided 

 leaves, out of which peer forth its small, vivid crimson flowers ; 

 thrives best in a moist and shady situation ; sow in October. 



Nigella. 



N. Hispanica. DEVIL-IN-A-BUSH FENNEL-FLOWER. A not 

 very pleasing annual ; interesting principally for the curious way 

 in which the largish blue flowers are surrounded by the fennel- 

 like foliage. Sow in October ; it requires shade and moisture. 



Delphinium. 



1. D. Ajacis EOCKET LAEKSPUE. 



2. D. consolida BRANCHING LAEKSPUK. The Larkspur 

 generally met with in Indian gardens is a naturalised degenerate 

 variety of D. consolida, a poor, weedy, worthless thing. Im- 

 ported seed of European sorts seems to lose its vitality very 

 soon, as 1 have sown it for many years in succession, but never 

 yet, except on one occasion, found it germinate. In Mr. Stalkart's 

 garden at Gooseree a remarkably fine kind of Rocket Larkspur 

 has been cultivated for more than twenty years past ; the seed 

 has been saved year after year, and the plants, while in blossom, 

 have been quite the glory of the garden, with flowers very 

 double, and of colours varying from deep purple, through azure 

 blue and pale pink striped and mottled, to pure white, produced 

 upon the stems in dense hyacinth-like spikes. 



It is not worth while in the vicinity of Calcutta to sow the 

 seed before the beginning of December, as that sown earlier only 

 lies in the ground, and will not germinate before the Cold season 

 is thoroughly set in. If the ground where Larkspurs have grown 

 one season be left undisturbed, an abundant crop of self-sown 

 plants will spring up the following November and December. 



