96 OUR ROCK-GARDEN 



proved itself very plastic, a great variety of colour 

 being obtainable, 1 while in some the spurs are de- 

 veloped to an extraordinary length. Gerard, in his 

 "Historic of Plants" our edition bears the date 

 1633 describes many varieties, "as nature list of 

 to play," while Parkinson in his "Paradisus," pub- 

 lished in 1629, declares that " there are many sorts 

 of columbines, as well differing in forme as colour 

 of the flowers, and of them both single and double 

 carefully noursed up in our gardens, for the delight 

 both of their forme and colours." The enterprise 

 of the horticulturists in this direction is therefore no 

 new thing. The columbine appears to be really a 

 plant of the woods of Southern Europe, but it has 

 for centuries been naturalised with us. Though 

 popular as a cottage-garden flower and therefore at 

 times under suspicion of being an escape from 

 cultivation, we have found it in localities far remote 

 from human dwellings, and where it was an un- 

 doubted wildling. The plant was sometimes held 

 a symbol of grief. Thus, in Brown's " British 

 Pastorals " we find the lines : 



"The columbine, by lonely wanderer taken, 

 Is then ascribed to such as are forsaken." 



1 Those who care to add these cultivated forms to their 

 collection will find the following of value : Aquilegia 

 chrysantha, A. calif ornica, A. glandulosa, A. Skinneri. The 

 first of these has bright yellow flowers ; in the second they are 



