RANUNCULACE^E. (CROWFOOT FAMILY.) 45 



name i6 not appropriate, as it is to the European Globe flower of the gardens, 

 nor is the blossom showy, being pale greenish-yellow, or nearly white. 



11. COPTIS, Salisb. Goldthread. 



Sepals 5-7, petal-like, deciduous. Petals 5-7, small, club-shaped, hollow 

 at the apex. Stamens 15-25. Pistils 3-7, on slender stalks. Pods diver- 

 gent, membranaceous, pointed with the style, 4 - 8-seeded. — Low smooth per- 

 ennials, with ternately divided root-leaves, and small white flowers on scapes. 

 (Name from kotvtu), to cut, alluding to the divided leaves.) 



1. C. trifblia, Salisb. (Three-leaved Goldthread.) Leaflets 3, 

 obovate-wedge-form, sharply toothed, obscurely 3-lobed ; scape 1 -flowered. — 

 Bogs, abundant northward ; extending south to Maryland along the moun- 

 tains. May. — Root of long, bright yellow, bitter fibres. Leaves evergreen, 

 shining. Scape naked, slender, 3' -5' high. (Eu.) 



12. HELLEBORUS, L. Hellebore. 



Sepals 5, petal-like or greenish, persistent. Petals 8-10, very small, tubu- 

 lar, 2-lipped. Pistils 3-10, sessile, forming coriaceous many-seeded pods. — - 

 Perennial herbs of the Old World, with ample palmate or pedate leaves, and 

 large, solitary, nodding, early vernal flowers. (Name from eXelu, to injure, and 

 fiopa, food, from their well-known poisonous properties.) 



1. H. vfRiDis, L. (Green Hellebore.) Root-leaves glabrous, pedate, 

 calyx spreading, greenish. — Near Brooklyn and Jamaica, Long Island, and 

 Bucks Co., Penn., Martindale. (Adv. from Eu.) 



13. AQTJILEGIA, Tourn. Columbine. 



Sepals 5, regular, colored like the petals. Petals 5, all alike, with a short 

 spreading lip, produced backwards into large hollow spurs, much longer than 

 the calyx. Pistils 5, with slender styles. Pods erect, many-seeded. — Peren- 

 nials, with 2 - 3-ternately compound leaves, the leaflets lobed. Flowers large 

 and showy, terminating the branches. (Name from aquila, an eagle, from some 

 fancied resemblance of the spurs to talons.) 



1. A. Canadensis, L. (Wild Columbine.) Spurs nearly straight; 

 stamens and styles longer than the ovate sepals. — Rocks, common. April - 

 June. — Flowers 2' long, scarlet, yellow inside (or rarely all over), nodding, so 

 that the spurs turn upward, but the stalk becomes upright in fruit. — More 

 graceful than the 



A. vulgaris, L., the common Garden Columbine, of Europe, with 

 hooked spurs, which is beginning to escape from cultivation in some places. 



14. DELPHINIUM, Tourn. Larkspur. 



Sepals 5, irregular, petal-like ; the upper one prolonged into a spur at the 

 base. Petals 4, irregular, the upper pair continued backwards into long spurs 

 which are enclosed in the spur of the calyx, the lower pair with short claws : 



