64 SUB-ALPINE PLANTS 



broad. Follicles 3, glabrous or glabrescent, with seeds striated on 

 every side. 



Woods, gorges, and damp, shady places in the mountains. The 

 writer has seen this as high as 7750 feet in Dauphiny. Somewhat 

 polymorphic ; poison. June to August. 



Distribution. Almost all Europe ; Western Asia, India, Morocco. 



Aconitum Napellus L. Monkshood. 



Tubers 1-3, turnip-like, covered with fibres. Stem erect, 2-5 

 feet high, lower part glabrous like the leaves, upper part downy 

 like the flower-stalks and calyx, rarely quite glabrous, leafless 

 below, densely leafy above. Leaves shiny, palmate, 5-7 cleft. 

 Segments lozenge-shaped in outline, once or several times divided 

 with linear or lanceolate acute teeth. Flowers dark violet, very 

 rarely purple, light blue, or white, in a terminal, elongated, crowded, 

 simple, cylindrical raceme, rarely branched at the base into a pan- 

 icle. Calyx deciduous. Hood obliquely hemispherical ; claw of 

 the two upper petals nearly semicircular, bent forwards, with hori- 

 zontal or deflected cap. Spur capitate, somewhat bent. Follicles 

 glabrous, less often downy, at first spreading, afterwards parallel. 



Woods and damp meadows and pastures in the Alps and sub- 

 Alps, especially by the herdmen's huts, descending streams into 

 the plains ; 3000-8200 feet. June to August. Polymorphic, 

 poisonous, and medicinal. 



Distribution. Carpathians, Riesengebirge, Eastern, Central, and 

 Western Alps ; Jura, Vosges, Black Forest ; Erzgebirge, locally 

 in Germany as for as Holstein ; France (except West and South), 

 Central Asia, Siberia. In Britain in woods and by streams in South 

 Wales and the south-west of England. 



Aconitum paniculatum L. 



Rootstock with tubers like turnips. Stem 2-4 feet high, very 

 leafy, flexuous, pubescent at the top. Leaves not shining, shortly 

 stalked, more broadly and coarsely divided than in the last. Raceme 

 more leafy, rarely quite simple, frequently paniculate from the 

 branching of the lower branches. Flowers violet, often paler or 

 white or greenish towards the base, very rarely quite white or 

 blue. Hood handsome, i-i J inches, but variable in size and height. 

 In the same inflorescence are often flowers in which the two upper 

 petals have straight and curved claws, and the hood is erect, 

 oblique or nearly horizontal. Follicles 4, glabrous, spreading. 



Damp woods and thickets, and occasionally on more open moun- 

 tain sides, generally at about 5000 feet altitude. July, August. 



Distribution. Carpathians, Erzgebirge, Jura (rare), Alps of 

 Savoy and Dauphiny ; Central Europe as far east as Roumania. 



