Old Time Gardens 
270 
in every one’s garden, and deservedly grow in 
favor yearly. The season of their flowering can 
be prolonged, renewed in fact, by cutting away 
the withered flower stems. They respond well 
to all caretaking, to liberal fertilizing and water- 
ing, just as they dwindle miserably with neglect. 
There are a hundred varieties in all ; among 
them the “ Rocket-flowered ” and “ Ranunculus 
flowered ” Larkspurs or Delphiniums are ever 
favorites. A friend burst forth in railing at being 
asked to admire a bed of Delphinium. “Why can’t 
she call them the good old-time name of Larkspur, 
and not a stiff name cooked up by the botanists.” I 
answered naught, but I remembered that Parkinson 
in his Garden of Pleasant Flowers gives a chapter to 
Delphinium, with Lark’s-heel as a second thought. 
“ Their most usual name with us,” he states, “is 
Delphinium.” There is meaning in the name : the 
flower is dolphin-like in shape. Of the perennial 
varieties th q Delphinium brunonianum has lovely clear 
blue, musk-scented flowers ; the Chinese or Branch- 
ing Larkspur is of varied blue tints and tall growth, 
and blooms from midsummer until frost. And love- 
liest of all, an old garden favorite, the purely blue 
Bee Larkspur, with a bee in the heart of each 
blossom. In an ancient garden in Deerfield I saw 
this year a splendid group of plants of the old Del- 
phinium Belladonna : it is a weak-kneed, weak-backed 
thing ; but give it unobtrusive crutches and busks 
and backboards (in their garden equivalents), and its 
incomparable blue will reward your care. There is 
something singular in the blue of Larkspur. Even 
