i6 



Rammculacecz Aqnilegia. 



11. AQUILllGIA. 



The Columbines are amongst the most familiar of herbaceous 

 plants. Leaves alternate and ternately divided. Flowers very 

 showy, solitary or panicled, blue, white, yellow, scarlet, or 

 yellow, or some combination of these colours. Sepals 5, peta- 

 loid, deciduous. Petals normally 5, concave, produced down- 

 wards into a spur between the sepals. Carpels 5, sessile, free. 

 Temperate regions of the northern hemisphere. Name from 

 the Latin aquila, an eagle, from the form of the petals. 



1. A. vulgaris (fig. 13). Common Columbine. The only 

 native species, and as such with blue or, rarely, white 



flowers ; though under cultiva- 

 tion it has produced an endless 

 number of varieties, many of 

 them very handsome and brilli- 

 antly coloured, including almost 

 every describable tint. There 

 are also double-flowered varie- 

 ties in which the spurs of the 

 petals are inserted one in the 

 others in a most remarkable 

 manner. It grows from 2 to 4 

 feet high. The spurs are hooked, 

 and the follicles hairy. 



2. A. alplna. A pretty 

 little plant, about a foot high, 

 with finely cut leaves and large 

 white or blue with a white cen- 

 tre flowers. It is a native of 

 Switzerland, blooming in May. 



3. A. glandulosa. A showy 

 species, of which there are seve- 

 ral varieties in cultivation. The 

 flowers are very large, blue and 

 white, the petals shortly spurred. 



Fig. 13. Aquilegia vulgaris. (J nat. size.) A mt i ve o f Siberia. 



4. A. jucunda. One of the handsomest of the genus, having 

 unusually large flowers, whose calyx is bright blue and the corolla 

 blue and white ; spurs short, curved. Also from Siberia. 



5. A. Canadensis. A tall, graceful, variable species, with 

 loose panicles of bright red and internally orange-coloured 

 drooping flowers. The flowers appear in June, and are narrower 



