STOCK-POISONING PLANTS OF THE RANGE. 9 
wild geranium, which in many places grows abundantly with the 
tall larkspur, but the different habit of the plant makes it compara- 
tively easy to distinguish between them. 
It is more difficult to distinguish between aconite and larkspur, 
because the leaves of the aconite are almost identical in form with 
those of the larkspur, and the habit of the plant is similar. In 
Plate IX is given a picture of the ordinary aconite in which this 
similarity will be noted. The leaves of aconite have shorter petioles 
(leaf stalks) than those of larkspur. 
Species of tall larkspurs are found in all the mountain ranges of 
the West at high elevations, growing up as high as the timber line. 
Sometimes they are found as scattered clumps of plants, but fre- 
quently they grow in large masses. 
Plate VII shows the leaf, flower, and seed pod of the tall larkspur 
which is most common in Montana and adjoining States, known to 
botanists as Delphinvum cucullatum. This does not ordinarily grow 
to any considerable height—perhaps not more than 4 feet—and the 
flower is less conspicuous than in most of the tall larkspurs. The 
color is ordinarily described as a grayish purple, due to the fact 
that there is considerable white in connection with the violet-purple 
shades of the corolla. This plant is responsible for most of the 
deaths of cattle by larkspur in Montana. Plate VIII shows the tall 
larkspur of the Pacific coast region; it has a much more conspicuous 
and beautiful flower than Delphinwum cucullatum. 
Delphvmum barbeyr is perhaps the most widely distributed species 
of the tall larkspurs and is the plant which causes the greater part 
of the tall-larkspur losses in Colorado, Utah, and some other locali- 
ties. Plate X shows the plant as it grows in the midst of other 
plants in the high mountains of Colorado. In this picture it is 
erowing in connection with aconite, Veratrum, and some other weeds. 
In most cases the tall larkspurs blossom during the summer 
months and do not die down until they are broken by the snows 
of the early fall. The exact time of blossoming differs with the 
species and with the places in which they occur. In the mountains 
of Colorado the blossoming period is ordinarily in July, and the 
seeds are formed in August, after which the plant commences to 
dry up. The leaves of the tall larkspurs lose their poisonous proper- 
ties after blossoming, so that in most localities the cases of poison- 
ing from these plants occur in the spring or early summer. In the 
case of some species, however, especially in localities where the snow- 
fall is heavy and remains late in the season, in certain parts of the 
Sierras, the period of blossoming continues into the late summer, so 
that poisening cases may occur at any time during the season. 
The seeds of the tall larkspurs are very poisonous, but they are 
not eaten to any extent, by cattle. 
126169°—Bull. 575—19—2 
