MONKSHOOD 



Flowers. — Dark, violet-blue, borne in a terminal raceme, each flower 

 subtended by two small bracts. 



Sepals. — Five; upper sepal a hood which shuts down over the two 

 lateral sepals and over the two hammer-like petals; the two lower sepals 

 are small and pointed. 



Stamens. — Many, the filaments cohering into a short tube. 



Pistils. — Three to five, developing into many-seeded follicles. 



Stigmas. — Not receptive until after the anthers mature. 



The monkshood of stately growth, Betsy called Dumbledore's Delight, 

 and was not aware that the plant, in whose cowl-shaped flowers that busy 

 and best-natured of all insects appears to revel, is the deadly aconite of 

 which she read in poetry. — "The Doctor," Southey. 



This is a beautiful 

 stately plant found 

 in old gardens but 

 not much favored 

 in new ones; for its 

 acrid juices are ex- 

 ceedingly poisonous 

 and consequently it 

 has been banished. 



From the root is 

 obtained the aco- 

 nite of the materia 

 medica. 



The root is harm- 

 ful only when eaten, 

 and people do not 

 as a rule eat the 

 roots of their flower- 

 ing plants; but there 



is just enough uncertainty about it to make owners of gardens 

 nervous when children visit th?m. The general appearance of 

 leaf and flower stalk resembles the larkspur — tall, cylindrical 

 in effect, crowned with a crowded raceme of blue or violet flowers. 



The blossom, like that of the larkspur and the columbine, has 



169 



Monkshood. Acomtum napellus 



