Plate 512 . 
DELPHINIUM NUDICAULE. 
The family of Delphinium furnishes some of the most beautiful 
of our herbaceous plants, especially in that colour always so 
much appreciated and so deservedly admired, a rich ultramarine 
blue ; nothing can be more striking in a garden than a good 
clump of D. formosum, Hendersonii , or magnijicum , while the 
lovely sky-blue of B. formosum furnishes a colour very rarely 
seen in our gardens, and hence the more valuable, while the 
curious forms of Alopecianoides, and others of a similar character, 
give much variety to the class. 
That which we now figure, however, belongs not to this 
section, and is of a much less showy character, being allied to 
B. cardinale. It was, we learn from the Botanical Magazine, where 
it was figured, discovered by Mr. David Douglas in the year 1853, 
in California, and since his time has been found by many subse- 
quent travellers. The plants exhibited this year were raised 
from seed, sent home to Mr. W. Thompson, Tavern Street, 
Ipswich, an indefatigable caterer of curious and deserving 
novelties in hardy herbaceous plants. Dr. Hooker describes it 
as nearly allied to B. cardinale, but distinguishable from it by 
being smaller, being paler, and more orange-coloured in the 
flowers, much less branching in its habit, and by some points 
of botanical difference. 
All the Delphiniums will thrive in a mixture of good loam and 
sand, and are quite at home in good rich garden soil. There is 
