

294 



THE GARDEN MAGAZINE 



June, 1914 



Annual larkspurs in blue, pink and white are easily 

 grown and are good for cutting 



a catalogue phrase, one may best call 

 "shades of blue." 



It has often seemed to me that, of all 

 flower-collectors, the happiest and richest 

 must be the collector of delphiniums. From 

 all over the world they have come to our 

 gardens, from Siberia, Formosa, Kashmir, 

 the Caucasus, China, California, and the 

 Rocky Mountains, hybrids from Germany, 

 France, and England — varying in shade 

 and foliage and habit, but alike in the 

 curiously shaped spurred flowers and 

 wonderful coloring of what shade soever. 

 And nearly all bear the hall-mark of state- 

 liness, and a stateliness blended, as in no 

 other tall plant of my acquaintance, with 

 a certain airy grace. There is nothing 

 stiff about a larkspur; though the flower- 

 set, columnar spikes may be head high 

 or higher than the head, the florets, lightly 

 poised as a lark's wing, appear to float on 

 air, so nearly invisible are the slender pale 

 green stems connecting them with the 

 stalk. 



In the collector's garden would be found, 

 not alone the most distinct and beautiful 

 of the commercial hybrids that grace the 

 average hardy garden, but species and 

 variations of species unknown to the 

 amateur, yet possessed of great beauty and 

 interest. 



One of these foreigners that may, with 

 proper encouragement, be reconciled to an 

 American home is Delphinium Cashmerian- 

 um, a species not more than two feet high, 

 the broad sepals of a distinct light blue, the 



upper petals so dark as to look from a 

 little distance almost black. The palmate 

 foliage is a rich deep green, slightly hairy. 

 A mountaineer, this plant should be given 

 a cool location and well drained soil. This 

 and the fine foliaged Chinense, are good 

 for foreground planting. A delphinium 

 catalogued as Compact Blue apparently 

 belongs to the Chinese type, which it 

 resembles in foliage and habit. It is an 

 abundant bloomer and good for massing 

 where a comparatively low-growing plant 

 is desired. 



A curious delphinium is that known as 

 the hairy-fruited larkspur, D. dasycarpum, 

 said to be a beautiful blue with rather 

 large petals and hairy leaves. A native 

 of the Caucasus, it attains a height of four 

 to six feet and is considered a most inter- 

 esting variety. Another from the Cau- 

 casus, recently introduced, is the beautiful 

 sky-blue, D. Caucasicum, seeds of which 

 can now be obtained. 



A rare species from Thibet, which, how- 

 ever, the amateur may grow from seed, is 

 Brown's larkspur, an exceedingly dwarf but 

 very handsome perennial. It is never more 

 than a foot high and sometimes does not ex- 

 ceed six inches, but its large light blue flow- 

 ers shade beautifully to a purple margin, the 

 centre being black. This species differs 

 from other larkspurs in having a strong 

 musky odor, but it will never be grown 

 for its odor alone. 



Delphinium grandiflorum or Siberian 

 larkspur (of which Chinense is a varia- 

 tion) comes to us from Siberia and is 

 remarkable chiefly for producing, in some 

 of its forms, the only pure white flowers 

 known in the larkspur family prior to the 

 introduction of the new English and Ger- 

 man hybrids. An almost white variety 

 of hybridum called ochroleucum, was 

 discovered in Armenia as long ago as 1823, 

 the name indicating clearly its actual color, 

 between yellow and white. Its height is 

 about three feet. 



A biennial species, Requien's, is note- 

 worthy, not so much for color or beauty, 

 as for its phenomenal habit, the lower 

 part of the plant being smooth stalked and 

 leaved while the upper part is covered 

 thickly with long spreading hairs. 



The rich blues of the delphinium are so 

 inseparably associated in the minds of 

 most of us with the plant itself that it 

 may come as a surprise to some that there 

 are scarlet, yellow, and even brown varie- 

 ties, though by no means so desirable as 

 the blue. The best scarlet is undoubtedly 

 D. cardinale, a native of California. It 

 grows from three to four feet high and is 

 an exceedingly handsome plant, but needs 

 a very deep, rich soil for the proper nourish- 

 ment of its long and fleshy roots. Another 

 scarlet, very dwarf and very curious, is 

 D. nudicaule, also a Californian and a 

 perennial (under happy conditions). I 

 have not succeeded in carrying it through 

 a third winter, so that I incline to the 

 opinion that, in New England, at least, 

 it is biennial. In habit D. nudicaule is a 

 little tufted plant only a few inches high, 



throwing loose racemes well above the 

 foliage. The blossom resembles that of 

 Aquilegia Canadensis more than a larkspur 

 flower. It has a very elongated scarlet 

 spur, with short petals of reddish yellow. 

 Among my plants, obtained from seed, 



There is a host of named varieties of the hybrid lark- 

 spur covering the who'e range of shades from white 

 through azure to true deep blue, many with metallic sheen 





