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Yellow Columbine

Aquilegia leptoceras.

ONCE more we meet with flowers closely allied in one genus, but comprising all the primary colours as well as their secondary and tertiary shades. We have columbines red, blue, and yellow, as we have tropaeolums, leschenaultias, and primulas. The beautiful Aquilegia leptoceras, also known as Aquilegia chrysantha, is a native of New Mexico and Arizona. Professor Gray is not in accord with Sir J. D. Hooker as regards the technical botany of the plant. The former regards A. chrysantha as a species, the latter regards it as a variety of A. leptoceras. The last-named is commonly met with blue and white, but Nuttall, its discoverer, calls it ochroleucous. It is figured in the "Botanical Magazine," t.4407, and the plant before us is figured as A.L. chrysantha in the same work, t. 6073. A comparison of the figures justifies the view of Sir J. D. Hooker, the main difference between the two being that our present blue and white, exquisitely beautiful; A. canadense, scarlet and yellow; A. fragrans, rosy flesh or light purple, sweet-scented; A. glandulosa, rich blue, a grand plant; A. Skinneri, red-tipped yellow, worth having, but scarcely desirable in a small collection; A. Californica, orange scarlet, a fine plant; A. brachyceras, full azure blue, with yellow crescents in the centre, curious and beautiful; A. vulgaris, variously coloured and well known, both with single and double flowers, as a most familiar garden plant.