Tall Mountain Larkspur
Delphinium Scopulorum, Var. Glaucum, Gray
Buttercup or Crowfoot Family
Mostly smooth; more or less glaucous. Stems.—Two to six feet high. Leaves.—Palmately five- to seven-parted; the divisions slashed into sharp-pointed lobes. Flowers.—Blue; in narrow, slender racemes; on rather short, slender pedicels. Sepals.—Rather narrow; six lines long or less; minutely tomentose. Spur crapy; rather slender. Ovaries.—Smooth. (Flower-structure as in D. nudicaule.) Syn.—D. scopulorum, Gray. Hab.—The Sierras, at about six thousand feet; from the San Bernardino Mountains to the Yukon River.
BLUE GENTIAN—Gentiana calycosa.
By July and August the slender spires of the tall mountain larkspur are conspicuous along the watercourses of the Sierras, where they are usually found in the company of their near relatives, the monk’s-hoods and the gay scarlet columbines. A ramble down one of these mountain streams affords a succession of most delightful surprises. Willow copses, alternating with tangles of larkspur, great willow-herb, and monk’s-hood, are followed by open, velvety meadows, starred by white and blue daisies, or diversified by the pure spikes of the milk-white rein-orchis, or the lovely blossoms of the pink mimulus; while further down, the stream perchance suddenly narrows and deepens, flowing by some jutting rock-wall, resplendent with crimson pentstemons or brilliant sulphur-flowers.