Sepals 5--7, petal-like, deciduous. Petals 5--7, small, club-shaped, hollow at the apex. Stamens 15--25. Pistils 3--7, on slender stalks. Pods divergent, membranaceous, pointed with the style, 4--8-seeded.--Low smooth perennials, with ternately divided root-leaves, and small white flowers on scapes. (Name from κόπτω, _to cut_, alluding to the divided leaves.) 1. C. trifòlia, Salisb. (THREE-LEAVED GOLDTHREAD.) Leaflets 3, obovate-wedge-form, sharply toothed, obscurely 3-lobed, scape 1-flowered.--Bogs, abundant northward, extending south to Maryland along the mountains, and west to Iowa. May.--Root of long, bright yellow, bitter fibres. Leaves evergreen, shining. Scape naked, slender, 3--5´ high. (Eu.) 14. HELLÉBORUS, Tourn. HELLEBORE. Sepals 5, petal-like or greenish, persistent. Petals 8--10, very small, tubular, 2-lipped. Pistils 3--10, sessile, forming coriaceous many-seeded pods.--Perennial herbs, with ample palmate or pedate leaves, and large, solitary, nodding, early vernal flowers. (An ancient name of unknown meaning.) H. VÍRIDIS, L. (GREEN HELLEBORE.) Root-leaves glabrous, pedate; calyx spreading, greenish.--Has been found wild on Long Island, in Penn., and W. Va. (Adv. from Eu.) 15. ERÁNTHIS, Salisb. WINTER ACONITE. Sepals 5--8, petal-like, deciduous. Petals small 2-lipped nectaries. Carpels few, stipitate, several-seeded.--Perennial herbs, with palmately multifid radical leaves, the scape bearing a single large yellow flower surrounded by an involucre of a single leaf. (Name from ἦρ, _spring_, and ἄνθος, _flower_.) E. HYEMÀLIS, Salisb. Dwarf; flowers cup-shaped, 1½´ in diameter; petals shorter than the stamens.--Near Philadelphia. (Adv. from Eu.) 16. AQUILÈGIA, Tourn. COLUMBINE. Sepals 5, regular, colored like the petals. Petals 5, all alike, with a short spreading lip, produced backward into large hollow spurs, much longer than the calyx. Pistils 5, with slender styles. Pods erect, many-seeded.--Perennials, with 2--3-ternately compound leaves, the leaflets lobed. Flowers large and showy, terminating the branches. (Name from _aquilegus_, water-drawing.) 1. A. Canadénsis, L. (WILD COLUMBINE.) Spurs nearly straight; stamens and styles longer than the ovate sepals.--Rocks, common. April--June.--Flowers 2´ long, scarlet, yellow inside (or rarely all over), nodding, so that the spurs turn upward, but the stalk becomes upright in fruit. 2. A. brevístyla, Hook. Flowers small, blue or purplish or nearly white; spurs incurved.--Red River valley, Dak.; Rocky Mts., northward. A. VULGÀRIS, L., the common GARDEN COLUMBINE, of Europe, with hooked spurs, is beginning to escape from cultivation in some places. 17. DELPHÍNIUM, Tourn. LARKSPUR.