foliage is exquisite, and when the long sprays have ceased to 

 bloom and the seed pods are ready to open, save every seed. 



Immediately after the seed is gathered it should be sown and 

 by the Autumn you should have a hundred or a thousand or more 

 Columbines. The following Spring they will flower. Plant them 

 closely and if wood ashes are dusted over their crowns, they will 

 not be molested by their foes. 



I plant only the long spurred hybrids. Alba, pure white, is 

 a good variety to plant in the shrubbery. Californica, orange, 

 crimson and yellow, is one of the longest spurred hybrids, a splen- 

 did variety for grouping under Forysthia. Chrysantha, a clear, 

 pale yellow; Coerulea, a violet, blue and white; Coerulea alba, a 

 pure white ; Delicatissima, as its name suggests, is of a very deli- 

 cate, satiny-rose color, with its very long spurs blending into 

 gold; Rocky Mountain Blue, which is a clear blue with a snow- 

 like corolla, a very fine variety to plant in the shrubbery; Rose 

 Queen has very long spurs of rose with flushed white center and 

 long golden anthers. Planted with the delicate Maidenhair family 

 of ferns and Spanish Iris all of the Columbines except the wild 

 native red and yellow, which does not harmonize with the soft 

 blue, rose, pink, lavender or white tones of the long-spurred hy- 

 brids, will make a planting harmonious and most interesting. 



72 



