16 Ranunculacce—A guilegta. 
11. AQUILBGIA. 
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. alpina.— <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. 
A native of Siberia. 
4. A. juctinda.—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. Canadénsis—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 
Fig. 13. Aquilegia vulgaris. (4 nat. size.) 
