Plate 254 
AQUILEGIA C.ERULEA. 
“ In a genus noteworthy for including in its limits some of 
our most popular hardy perennials the Aqiiilegia ccerulea stands 
conspicuous, if not pre-eminent, for its striking and highly orna¬ 
mental features. Though perhaps rivalled in point of beauty 
by the well-known Siberian species, A. glandulosa , it possesses 
a great advantage over that plant (which, as every gardener 
knows, is a shy bloomer) in the facility with which it yields its 
flowers under the simplest conditions. 
“ Its most salient feature, as our Plate will show, is the long- 
spurred petal so characteristic of the genus, and which in this 
species attains its maximum development and attenuation. In 
most specimens the tube of the spur is fully two inches long, 
and a graceful outward curvature adds considerably to the effect 
produced by this extreme length. It is scarcely less remarkable 
for the reversed position of the flowers at the time of their 
expansion. As our readers are aware, in most, if not all the 
other species of this genus, the fully expanded flower is pen¬ 
dent until fertilization is effected and the blossom begins to 
wither, when it assumes an erect position. In the A. ccerulea , 
on the other hand, the bud only is drooping, but as the period 
of expansion approaches the flower gradually becomes nearly 
erect, thus presenting its mouth to the observer and exhibiting 
more fully the contrast of colour between the white limb of 
the spur and the violet-blue of the sepals. 
“This leads to the remark that in a few instances the caerulean 
tint is replaced by a blush colour, and the plant is known to 
exist in a wild state with deep-yellow flowers. The singularly 
inappropriate specific name needs therefore hardly be pointed 
out, and it is the more inapplicable that in so many other species 
