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Contributions to the Horticultural DepartmExN't. 



No. 1. Notice of three varieties of the native ivild Col- 

 umbine. {Acjuilegia Canadensis L.) 



The increasing taste for native species of plants in our gar- 

 dens, renders any, that may be conspicuous for beauty or 

 singularity, worthy the notice of a record. 



As early as 1640, Parkinson, in his Theatre of Plants, makes 

 mention of "the red Columbine of Virginia;" and in his 

 account of the plants of Canada, another botanist, Cornutus, 

 gives a representation and description of our plant. 



The wild Columbine is too familiar to every one, to need 

 description. Its rich, scarlet and orange flowers, adorn our 

 sterile and rocky declivities in an exuberant profusion and help 

 to make May a month of blossoms. 



A pale, salmon colored, a pure white, and a double scarlet 

 yariety have originated in Salem. 



Mr. George J). Phippen detected the first, some ten or twelve 

 years since. He informs me that he " discovered it among 

 thousands of its scarlet companions on a declivity not far south 

 of the toll house on the Salem turnpike ; one of the spots, 

 where the flowers of the wild Columbine in their profusion, 

 remind one, of the descriptions given of the floral fields of 

 California." 



" I was fortunate," he adds, " in transplanting and preserv- 

 ino- it in my garden. It is one of nature's freaks, and is not at 

 all indebted to the hand of man for its alienation. I have 

 wished and almost considered its blossom yellow ; but it is 

 rather of a light salmon color. It seeds freely, and contrary 

 to my expectations, produces its like ; so, that it must be, a 

 permanent variety. I had hoped to rear from it a yellow 

 flower, to which color it is already more than half committed : 



