Fringing the stream, peering over the bank, as if to see its own loveliness reflected there, or hiding in the greenest recesses of the woodland, it is always a welcome blossom, and the eye brightens and the pulse quickens upon beholding it.
This species is at home throughout our borders; but there is another form which is said to be found occasionally in our very high mountains--_A. cœrulea_, James. This is plentiful in the Rocky Mountains, and is the State flower of Colorado. Its blossoms, which are blue or white, are large and magnificent, with slender spurs an inch and a half or two inches long.
[Illustration COLUMBINE--_Aquilegia truncata_.]
CLIMBING PENTSTEMON. SCARLET HONEYSUCKLE.
_Pentstemon cordifolius_, Benth. Figwort Family.
Woody at base, with long, slender branches, which climb over other shrubs. _Leaves._--Cordate or ovate; an inch or less long. _Calyx._--Campanulate; five-parted. _Corolla._--Bright scarlet; eighteen lines long. Sterile stamen bearded down one side. (See _Pentstemon_.) _Hab._--From Santa Barbara to San Diego.
In spring we notice in the borders of southern woodlands and along the roadsides certain long, wandlike branches with beautiful heart-shaped leaves, which are suggestive of those of the garden Fuchsia. Our curiosity is naturally aroused and we wonder what blossom is destined to grace this elegant foliage. Early summer solves the mystery by hanging the tips of these wands with brilliant scarlet blossoms, in every way satisfying the earlier promise.
These flowers often look down at us in a sort of mocking, Mephistophelian manner, as they hang amid the rich greens of other shrubs and trees. Seen with a glass, they are quite glandular. The fifth stamen looks like a very cunning little golden hearth-brush.
_Audibertia grandiflora_, Benth. Mint Family.
Coarse plants, with woolly stems; one to three feet high. _Leaves._--Opposite; wrinkly; white-woolly beneath; crenate; the lower three to eight inches long; hastate-lanceolate; on margined petioles; upper sessile; pointed. _Inflorescence._--Over a foot long, with many large, widely separated whorls of crimson flowers. _Corollas._--Eighteen lines long. Stamens and style much exserted. _Flower-bracts._--Ovate; sharp-pointed; often crimson-tinged. (Otherwise as _A. stachyoides._) _Hab._--The Coast Ranges, from San Mateo southward.