RANUNCULACEAE (CROWFOOT FAMILY) 



163 



with a short beak. The seeds are smooth. 

 As soon as they mature the foliage dies 

 down and the plant seems to be dead. 

 (Fig. 112.) 



Means of control 



The perennial roots must be killed and 

 that is most quickly and certainly accom- 

 plished by removing them from the soil. 

 The clustering tubers do not lie very 

 deeply beneath the surface and may be 

 readily grubbed out, or even pulled by 

 hand, when the ground is soft. Hand- 

 labor is expensive, but the price of a valu- 

 able cow would pay the wages of an 

 ordinary farm laborer for a considerable 

 time. Land too rankly infested to be 

 so cleansed should be put under thorough 

 cultivation and then heavily reseeded. 



SKY-BLUE LARKSPUR 



Delphinium aziireum, Miehx. 

 (Delphinium carolinianum, Walt.) FIQ. 112. Dwarf Lark- 



spur (Delphinium tricorne) . 

 ' Other English names : Carolina Larkspur, X |. 



Azure-flowered Larkspur. 

 Native. Perennial. Propagates by seeds. 

 Time of bloom: May to July. 

 Seed-time: July to September. 

 Range: Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, to Arkansas and 



Missouri, northward to Minnesota and the Saskatchewan. 

 Habitat: Prairies, fields, and meadows. 



A very beautiful species often cultivated in gardens. Stem one 

 to two feet in height, slender, clothed in very fine, ashy-gray hairs. 

 Leaves deeply three- to five-parted, the lobes with very slender, 

 almost linear bases, and each again twice or thrice divided into 

 narrowly linear segments ; petioles long and slender, dilated at the 

 base. Racemes terminal, four to eight inches long, the flowers 

 numerous, large, short-pedicelled, deep sky-blue occasionally 



