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.
WESTERN CARDINAL-FLOWER.
Lobelia splendens, Willd. Lobelia Family.
Stems.—Two to four feet tall; slender, smooth or nearly so. Leaves.—Alternate; mostly sessile; lanceolate or almost linear; glandular-denticulate. Flowers.—In an elongated, wandlike raceme; cardinal red. Calyx.—Five-cleft. Corolla.—With straight tube, over an inch long and split down the upper side; border two-lipped; upper lip with two rather erect lobes; lower spreading and three-cleft, with lobes three to six lines long. Stamens.—Five; united into a tube above. Anthers somewhat hairy. Ovary.—Two-celled. Style simple. Stigma two-lobed. Hab.—San Diego, San Bernardino, and Los Angeles Counties, and eastward to Texas.
The Western cardinal-flower quite closely resembles L. cardinalis of the East, differing from it in a few minor points only. I have never been fortunate enough to see it; but I am told that it is a magnificent plant, and that from July to September many a wet spot in our southern mountain cañons is made gay with its brilliant blossoms.
Of the Eastern plant Mr. Burroughs writes: "But when vivid color is wanted, what can surpass or equal our cardinal-flower? There is a glow about this flower, as if color emanated from it as from a live coal. The eye is baffled and does not seem to reach the surface of the petal; it does not see the texture or material part as it does in other flowers, but rests in a steady, still radiance. It is not so much something colored as it is color itself. And then the moist, cool, shady places it affects usually, where it has no rivals, and where the large, dark shadows need just such a dab of fire! Often, too, we see it double, its reflected image in some dark pool heightening its effect."