Jlquilegia Canadensis.
horn-shaped, dilated below into an obtuse point; carmine-red, tipped
with shining green and gamboge-yellow at the open or descending
end. Stamens numerous, filiform, straw-yellow. Anthers
orange-yellow. Pistils greenish-yellow. Peduncles reddish-purple.
Grows on rocks, from Canada to Georgia. Flowering very early in
April, and continuing in bloom till about the 30th of May.
This very elegant, well-known, and favourite flower, is the only
North American species of a genus, (called also Aquilina, from
Aquila, an eagle,) which derives its name from a fancied resemblance
in the nectaries to an eagle’s claws. The common English
name Columbine, by which it is every where known, has had its
origin in a supposed resemblance of the nectaries to the claws of a
pigeon, (Columba.) However remote these resemblances may appear
now, they have been considered sufficiently striking to the
minds of those who classed our plants by genera, and who, it will
readily be conceived, often found considerable difficulty in adapting
appellations at once proper and expressive.
Few plants in North America, are more extensively known and
admired than the Wild or American Columbine. The richness of
the different colours, which constitute the flowers, the peculiar formation
of the nectaries, and the entire grace of the whole plant, to
which the drooping situation of the flowers greatly contributes, all
combine to render it equally curious and admirable. It is the