Herbs with milky or coloured sap and alternate leaves or the upper rarely opposite, flowers perfect, regular or irregular; sepals 2, rarely 3 or 4, soon falling off; petals 4—6 or rarely more, folded together, often wrinkled; stamens numerous.
a Delphinium Menziesii DC. Blue Larkspur.
b Lithophragma parviflora (Hook.) Nutt. Lithophragma.
(¾ Nat.)
Smooth, 4—12 inches long, diffusely branching. Leaves all but the uppermost petioled, finely cut into oblong-obovate or wedge-shaped segments. Flowers numerous in an oblong head, bright golden yellow, nearly half an inch long; spur ½ the length of the body of the corolla, outer petals keeled, not crested; pods spreading or pendulose, torulose; seeds obtuse, margined, shining, obscurely ridged.
Frequent throughout the Rockies in open ground at the lower altitudes where it has been recently burned or cleared; flowering during most of the summer.