NATIVE WILD FLOWERS 
Painted Trillium may be found as far northward as Lake 
Superior; it also occurs in New England, and southward in 
the Alleghanies and Virginia. 
Rock CoLuMBINE—Aquilegia Canadensis (Uin.). 
(PLATE Ill.) 
“The graceful columbine, all blushing red, 
Bends to the earth her crown 
Of honey-laden bells.” 
This graceful flower enlivens us all through the months 
of May and June by its brilliant blossoms of deep red and 
golden yellow. 
In general outline the Wild Columbine resembles its 
cultivated sisters of the garden, but is more light and airy 
in habit. The plant throws up many tall slender stalks, 
furnished with leafy bracts, from which spring other light 
stems terminated by little pedicels, each bearing a large 
drooping flower and bud, which open in succession. 
The flower consists of five red sepals and five red petals; 
the latter are hollowed, trumpet-like at the mouth; ascend- 
ing they form narrow tubes, which are terminated by little 
round knobs filled with honey. The delicate thready pedicel 
on which the blossom hangs causes it to droop down and 
thus throw up the honey-bearing tubes of the petals, the 
little balls forming a pretty sort of floral coronet at the 
junction with the stalk. 
The unequal and clustered stamens and the five thready 
styles of the pistil project beyond the hollow mouths of the 
petals like an elegant golden-fringed tassel; the edges and 
interior of the petals are also of a bright golden yellow. 
These gay colors are well contrasted with the deep green of 
the root-leaves and bracts of the flower-stalks. The bracts 
are lobed iu two or three divisions. The larger leaves are 
39 
