DELPHINIUM 
1 1 1 
Perennial. Rhizome thick, branched. Shoot up to nearly a metre high, erect, branched, stem 
and branches somewhat hairy. Leaves glabrous, slightly glaucous especially above ; radical leaves 
with long petioles, with laminae 2-ternate or 3-ternate ; segments stalked, lobed ; lobes irregularly, 
coarsely, and obtusely toothed. Bracts and bracteoles sessile, lobed or toothed, obtuse. Petioles 
elongating in fruit. Flowers drooping, 2 — 4cm. in diameter, often double; June. Sepals blue, 
purple, reddish, or white, elliptical to ovate, about 1*5 — 2 - o cm. long. Staminodes or petals coloured 
like the sepals, spur strongly hooked, about 2*5 — 3 - o cm. long. Stamens projecting beyond the 
petals; filaments white, inner barren ones dilated. Follicles with short hairs, 1*5 — 3’o cm. long 
excluding the beak. 
Damp copses and woods, usually on calcareous soils, certainly indigenous in ash woods in 
the west and north of England and doubtless elsewhere, but so often occurring as a relic of 
cultivation that it is impossible to be certain of its precise range ; recorded as a wild plant from 
Cornwall and Kent northwards to the Border; perhaps not indigenous in Ireland — generally distri- 
buted, but local as a native plant. 
Southern Scandinavia, Denmark, Germany, Holland, Belgium, France, central Europe (ascending 
to 1860m. in Switzerland), Russia (central and southern), Spain, Italy; Asia; North America (not 
indigenous). 
Subtribe IV. *DELPHINIINA£ 
Delphiniinae nobis; Delphineae Syme Eng. Bot. i, 61 (1863). 
For characters, see page 104. 
British genera of Delphiniinae 
Genus 6. # Delphinium (see below). Sepals unequal, upper one with a long basal spur. 
Staminodes or petals spurred, spur entering the calycine spur. 
Genus 7. * Aconitum (p. 1 1 2). Sepals unequal, upper one covering the flower like a hood. 
Staminodes 2 — 5, only 2 well developed, these more or less erect and concealed within the hood. 
Genus 6. *Delphinium 
Delphinium [Tournefort Inst . 426, t. 241 (1700);] L. Sp. PI. 530 (1753) et Gen. PI. ed. 5, 236 (1754); 
Prantl op. cit. 56 et 59 (1891). 
Perennial or annual herbs, often poisonous. Leaves palmately compound, divided almost to the 
base. Inflorescence a quasi- raceme, each inflorescence really reduced to a single flower. Flowers pro- 
tandrous. Sepals 5, petaloid, free, nearly equal in size, deciduous, posterior one prolonged into a spur. 
Petals or nectar-leaves either 4, 2 postero-lateral ones free, anterior one missing, or (as in the British 
forms) 2, united, passing into the calycine spur which holds the nectar, the 2 antero-lateral ones and 
the anterior one missing. Stamens 00. Follicles 6 — 1, free, sessile. Seeds biseriate. 
The British species belongs to the section Consolida (DC. Syst. Nat. i, 341 (1818)) the members of which are annual 
plants, with only a single follicle to each flower. 
About 200 species ; northern hemisphere. 
British species of Consolida 
1. # D. ajacis (see below). Branches ascending. Flowers larger (about 2^5 cm. in diameter). 
Style and stigma short. Follicle pubescent, oblong. 
[*D. consolida (p. 112). Branches spreading. Flowers smaller. Style and stigma longer. 
Follicle glabrous, elliptical, acute.] 
I. ^DELPHINIUM AJACIS. Larkspur. Plate 109 
D. segetum Ray Syn. ed. 3, 273 (1724). 
Delphinium ajacis L. Sp. PL 531 (1753) partim?; Reichenbach Icon, iv, 20 (1840); [Gay Monogr. 
ined. ex] Grenier et Godron FI. France i, 46 (1847); Syme Eng. Bot. i, 62 (1863); M’Nab in Trans. Bot. 
Soc. Edinb. ix, 335 (1868) inch D. addendum ; Rouy et Foucaud FI. France i, 131 (1893); P- consolida Smith 
