"The gardener's ideal has been the full-flowered spike with a goodly range of colors on the chord of blue. We think of larkspur as blue. Some of these blues are pale as the sky, some pure cobalt, others indigo and still others are a strange broken blue, gorgeous and intense, yet impure, glittering on the surface as if it were strewn with broken glass, and sometimes darkened into red. The center of a larkspur is often grotesque; the hairy petals suggest a bee at the heart of a flower, and the flower itself looks like a little creature poised for flight. In structure the garden race has changed very little from the primitive type, though that type has wandered far from the simplicity of the buttercup, which names the _Ranunculacæ_. Whatever path of evolution the larkspur has trod, it is very clear that the goal at which it has arrived is cross-fertilization by means of the bee. At some time along the path the calix took on the duties of the corolla, became highly colored, developed a spur, while at the same time the corolla lessened both in size and in importance. The stamens mature before the pistil and are so placed that the bee cannot get at the honey without covering its head with pollen which it then bears to another flower." The name of Monk's-hood is also given to the Blue Helmet-flower, or aconite.[67] [67] See p. 248. Yellow Lark's-heels is a name our Elizabethan forefathers gave to the _Nasturtium Indicum_, a plant found in the West Indies and taken by the early Spanish explorers to Spain, whence it traveled to all parts of Europe. "It is now very familiar in most gardens of any curiosity," says Parkinson. "The likeness of this flower, having spurs, or heels, is of so great beauty and sweetness withall that my Garden of Delight cannot be unfurnished of it. The flowers are of an excellent gold yellow color and grow all along the stalks. In the middle of each of the three lower leaves there is a little long spot, or streak, of an excellent crimson color, with a long heel, or spur, behind, hanging down. The whole flower hath a fine small scent, very pleasing, which, being placed in the middle of some Carnations, or Gilloflowers (for they are in flower at the same time), make a delicious Tussiemussie, as they call it, or Nosegay, both for sight and scent. Monardus and others call it _Flos sanguineus_ of the red spots in the flower, as also _Nastnerzo de las Indias_, which is _Nasturtium Indicum_; and we thereafter in English, Indian Cresses. Yet it may be called from the form of the flowers Yellow Lark's heels." This flower is phosphorescent and is said to emit sparks, which are visible in the dark. VII _Pansies for Thoughts and Poppies for Dreams_