CROWFOOT FAMILY 



borne over sea to the new world, and it early bloomed in Pilgrim 

 gardens. This primitive stock still persists in cultivation, so vig- 

 orous and so virile as to challenge successfully the later arrivals 

 and the newer favorites. 



The flower of the Columbine is a unique and interesting form. 

 The sepals look like petals and the petals are veritable horns of 

 plenty, filled with nectar at the closed end for the swarms of bees 

 which gather: about. The sweets are produced by the blossoms 

 on a generous scale and to a Columbine bed in full bloom the bees 

 come, big and little, noisy and silent — all giddy with the feast. 

 There is no use trying to drive them away for they will not go. 

 Clumsy bumblebees with tongues long enough to reach the 

 honey by the open door, wise honey-bees who have learned to 

 take the short road to the nectar by biting through the spur, 

 quiet brown bees, little green carpenters — all are there, "vehement, 

 voluble, velvety," in a glorious riot of happiness and honey. 



The doubling occurs chiefly with the petals; the sepals as a 

 rule hold true to the five. But the petals sometimes double in 

 number, becoming ten spurs in place of five, and each spur be- 

 comes a nest of spurs like a set of Chinese cups, though the inner- 

 most are frequently imperfect. 



The colors are not always desirable. Dark opaque-blues 

 smoky-purples, muddy-pinks abound, although pale-blues, ex- 

 quisite-lavenders, and pure-whites also abound. In any group of 

 AquUegia vulgaris white should be abundant; it is the one effectual 

 peacemaker. 



RED COLUMBINE 



AquiUgia canadensis. 



The common, perennial Red Columbine, often called Honeysuckle. 

 Growing in ledges of rocks throughout the North. May, June. 



Stem. — One to two feet high. 



Leaves. — Radical or alternate on the flower stem; twice or thrice 

 palmately compound, the divisions in threes, leaflets roundish. 



Flowers. — Showy, nodding, red and yellow, borne at the end of branch- 

 ing stems. 



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