von Bieberstein. By the Chevalier de Lamarck it was re- 
corded as a variety of elatum. Subsequent observations 
have decided its specific distinction. We do not find it in 
the Hortus Kewensis. In Sweet’s Hortus Suburbanus Lon- 
dinensis, it is inserted in the Appendix; and is stated to 
have been introduced in 1815, We have never seen it in 
any other collection than in that of Messrs. Whitley and Co. 
of the Fulham nursery, where the drawing was taken in 
June last. A hardy and very ornamental perennial. 
Grows naturally in the Russian dominions, in the neigh- 
bourhood of Saratof, on the banks of the lower Wolga. 
The present is a straight plant of about 3 or 4 feet high; 
stem upright, branchingly panicled at the top; leaves pe- 
tioled; petiole not undulated at the base; blade cuneately 
tapered at the base (or rather at the base of the lobes), irre- 
gularly 5-lobed to beyond the middle; lobes oblong, acumi- 
nate, incisively scored or cleft; racemes long loose branch- 
ing; bractes subulate, very thin, smooth, shorter than the 
pedicles; bractelets smooth pressed close to the flower; 
calyxes smooth, of a beautiful blue; spur horizontal, 
straight, the length of the calyx; petals brown, 2 upper 
ones smooth entire at the top, 2 lower ones bifid bearded 
with deep-yellow hairs; germens smooth or else covered with 
a thin pubescence. The plant varies with an entirely smooth 
surface, and one that is very finely velvetted. A spontane- 
ous specimen sent from Saratof to Monsieur Decandolle, 
differed from the garden ones, in having the pedicles, brac- 
telets, calyxes, and even the capsules, in a younger stage, 
covered with a fine dense yelvet-like pubescence, = 
