SOUTHERN SCARLET LARKSPUR.
Delphinium cardinale, Hook. Buttercup or Crowfoot Family.
Stems.—Three to ten feet tall. Leaves.—Large; five- to seven-lobed nearly to the base, the lobes three- to five-cleft, with long-pointed segments. Flowers.—Large. Sepals.—Lanceolate; eight lines or more long; rotately spreading; the spur an inch or more long; pointed. Upper petals.—Orange, tipped with red; pointed; standing prominently forward. (Otherwise as D. nudicaule.) Hab.—The mountains, from Ventura County to San Diego.
During all the long springtime, Nature has been quietly making her preparations for a grand floral denouement to take place about mid-June. If we go out into the mountains of the south at that season, we shall be confronted with a blaze of glory, the like of which we have probably never witnessed before. This is due to the brilliant spires of the scarlet larkspur, which sometimes rise to a height of ten feet!
One writer likens the appearance of these blossoms, as they grow in dense masses, to a hill on fire; and Mr. Sturtevant writes: "To come upon a large group of these plants in full bloom for the first time, is an event never to be forgotten. I first saw a mass of them in the distance from the top of a hill. Descending, I came upon them in such a position that the rays of the setting sun intensified the brilliancy of their fiery orange-scarlet color. I gathered a large armful of stalks, from three to seven feet high, and placed them in water. They continued to expand for several weeks in water."
There is a general resemblance between this and the northern scarlet larkspur, but the clusters of this are far larger and denser, and the individual flowers are finer. The half-opened buds more resemble the open flowers of D. nudicaule; but the fully expanded flowers have the form of some of the finest of the blue larkspurs.
The plants affect a sandy soil or one of decomposed granite.