A quilegia. L. 12. 5. Columbine.
A. Canadensis. L. Red Columbine. Stem a foot or more
high, branching, smooth, with decompound leaves ; flowers red
or yellowish, singular in form, pendant, with the stamens extending
a little from the flower, terminating behind in a straight horn,
knobbed and sweet ; a beautiful plant, flowers in April and May,
and should be cultivated for its beauty ; inhabits dry woods and
fields, and rocky situations. Canada to Virginia.
A. vulgaris. L. Is cultivated in gardens for its fine blue
beautiful flower ; the horn or spur, terminating in the knob, is
crooked. The power of cultivation has caused these flowers
sometimes to become double, a hollow horn being enclosed in
another. Exotic, from England.
The seeds of this genus are said to be tonic. DC. Some
insects get access to the sugar of the horn by inserting their tongue
through an opening made into the tube.
The genus is named from the aquiline or eaglershaped form of
the spur.
Clematis. L. 12. 12.
C. Virginiana. L. Virgin’s Bower. From the Greek for
a tendril. Loudon.
This beautiful plant climbs and fastens itself by the twining of
the leaf-stalks around branches of shrubs ; flower-stalks rise from
the axils of the leaves, and bear a cluster of white flowers ; the
fruit has long feathery tails, being the lengthened and enlarged
style, and presenting a singular and beautiful appearance in maturity.
Flowers in August; spread over much of North America,
in woods and low grounds.
A tragene. L. 12. 12.
A. Americana. Sims. “ An elegant climbing vine, with
large flowers. The stem gives off opposite axillary buds, out
of each of which proceed 2 ternate leaves, and a fine purple
flower. Petals 4, oblong-ovate, ciliate, an inch or more in length.”
Big. Flowers in June, and grows on the hills and in the valleys
of Berkshire County. This species was taken from the preceding
genus, and formed into a genus by itself.
A nemone. L. 12. 12. Windflower.
From the Greek for zeind, from its bleak localities. Loudon.
Three species ; two, nemorosa, DC., and thalictroides, L .,
small, delicate, beautiful; flowering in April and May, about
hedgbs and woods.
A. Virginiana. L . This is a taller and coarser plant, in fields
and pastures and hedges ; its stem dividing about a foot from the
ground into 2, and sometimes more, flower-stalks, which bear
a single whitish-green flower, and mature their fruit in a cylindrical
head an inch or more long ; leaves are given off at this division
of the stem, ternate, deeply lobed and hairy. Flowers in J u ly ;
fruit woolly.
It is often said, in the western part of the State, that the Indians
made use of this plant to prevent the fatal effects of the
poison of the rattlesnake.
A. cylindrica. Gray. Stem 1 - 3 feet high, with subumbellate
flower-stalks, each bearing one flower in a yellowish-green many-
leafed flower-cup ; head of fruit an inch long ; leaves in 3 divisions
; the lateral segments 2-parted, and the middle one 3-cleft;
flowers in June ; collected near Boston by Mr. Greene. T. and
Gr. in “ Flora of North America.”
C optis. Sals. 12. 12.
C. trifolia. Sals. Goldthread. Named by the common
people from its small, horizontal, creeping, bright-yellow roots,
lying just under the surface; a flower-stalk bearing one white
flower, rises from the root to the height of about 3 inches ;
leaves radical and ternate, about as high as the flowers ; grows in
swamps or low grounds, on banks, or around the roots of trees,
and flowers from May to July. Roots bitter, and the infusion
used for “ apthous affections of the mouth.” See Bigelow’s
“ Medical Botany.” The plant yields a yellow dye. Beck.
Named from the Greek, to cut, on account of the divided leaves.