BUTTERCUP FAMILY. Ranunculaceae. 



Very handsome, over a foot tall, the 

 Sacramento upper stem downy, the lower more or less 



Larkspur hairy and the leaves more or less velvety. 



Delphinium J a 



varieg&tum Tlle n w ers are an inch or more long and 



Purple rather few, with long pedicels, forming a 



Spring, summer loose cluster. They are downy on the 

 outside, alt bright-purple, except the two 

 upper petals, which are white tipped with purple, the 

 lower petals edged and tipped with hairs, the spur stoutish 

 and wrinkled. These flowers, though described as blue, 

 seem to me to have more true purple than most Larkspurs. 

 They probably vary a good deal in color. This grows in 

 the Coast Ranges and the Sacramento Valley. There are 

 many similar blue Larkspurs. 



Scarlet seems an odd color for a Lark- 



Delphinium West. This is an exceedingly airy 



nudicaule graceful plant and suggests a Columbine 



Re< ^ more than a Larkspur. The stem is 



Wastf Oreg Cal slender and branching, from one to over 

 * two feet tall, with a "bloom"; the leaves 

 thickish, smooth, dark rich green on the upper side and 

 pale on the under. The flowers are far apart, from two to 

 twelve, on long pedicels, forming a very loose, open cluster. 

 Each flower is about an inch long; the sepals scarlet 

 shading to yellow, the spur tipped with deeper red, the 

 petals yellow tipped with crimson, not woolly, the two 

 upper notched and much larger than the two lower ones, 

 which are small and slashed into two points, the edges of I 

 both sepals and petals more or less hairy; the buds pale 

 yellowish-green, tinged with pink and red. These charm- 

 ing flowers have an elfin look all their own, as they swing 

 their little pointed red caps in the light shade of cool 

 canyons along the mountain streams they love. In 

 southern California we find D. cardindle, a handsomer 

 plant, sometimes six feet tall, its flowers larger and deeper 

 red and forming a larger, closer cluster. 



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