R ANUNCULACE.E. 5 



oblong, obcordate at summit: style filiform: achenes few (4 6), rather 

 sharply rugose. Common as the last, but of short duration. April, May. 



5. DELPHINIUM, Diosc., (LARKSPUR). Erect herbs. Leaves pal- 

 mately cleft or divided. Flowers irregular, in terminal racemes. Sepals 

 5, colored and petaloid, the upper one produced backward into a long 

 hollow spur, the others plane. Petals 24, two of them developed back- 

 wards and intruded into the spurred sepal. Pistils mostly 3, becoming 

 x -seeded follicles. 



# Flowers blue, varying to pink or flesh color (never scarlet}. 

 J Root a cluster thickish half-woody fibres. 



1. I). Californicum, Hook. & Am. Stout, strict, 35 ft. high, pubes- 

 cent: leaves ample, deeply 5-cleft, the segments variously lobed: raceme 

 dense, 1 1% ft. long: fl. smallish, dull greenish or whitish or with a 

 purplish tinge, scarcely expanded, externally rather densely velvety-pubes- 

 cent: follicles oblong, turgid, erect. Plentiful on Mt. Diablo; also near 

 Belmont; otherwise not common. April June. 



2. D. hesperium, Gray. Stoutish, 1^ 2% ft. high : canescent with 

 a short and close pubescence: leaves much dissected, the lobes linear 

 obtuse: raceme dense, elongated: fl. well expanded, deep blue (occasion- 

 ally pink); spur stout, straight, about as long as the sepals: follicles 

 erect, pubescent. Common on dry slopes; late in flowering. June, July. 



3. D. variegatum, Torr. & Gray, var. apicnlatum, Greene. A foot 

 high or more, coarsely and retro rsely pubescent : leaves few, 3-parted or 

 -cleft into broad linear lobes: raceme short, dense, cylindrical: fl. large, 

 dark blue: follicles pubescent. Plains near Suisun and Antioch. 

 March May. 



H -J Hoots more fieshy, often grumose or tuberiform. 



4. D. Menziesii, DC. Root a cluster of short roundish or com- 

 pressed connected tubers : stem 1 ft. high or less, leafy below, but leaves 

 few, long-petioled, palmately parted, pubescent or nearly glabrous: 

 raceme loose; fl. few and large, on long ascending pedicels; spur short, 

 stout, straight: follicles divergent. Hills toward the sea, from San 

 Mateo Co. northward. April July. 



5. D. decorum, Fisch. & Mey. Eoot-cluster short, grumose, the 

 tuberiform branches producing many long fibres: stem solitary, slender, 

 simple, seldom 1 ft. high: herbage pale green, pubescent or glabrate: 

 leaves parted into 3 5 widely sundered segments, these broad cuneiform, 

 3-lobed in the radical ones, entire in the cauline: fl. rather small, in an 

 open raceme, deep blue except the uppermost petals, these white : spur 



