Twolobe larkspur

Delphinium nuttallianum, the twolobe larkspur, is a slender perennial herb in the Ranunculaceae family native to dry open meadows, sagebrush flats, and montane forests of western North America. The plant grows from a small cluster of tuberous roots and reaches fifteen to fifty centimetres in height with a single erect, finely hairy stem. The mostly basal leaves are palmately divided into narrow linear to oblong segments, giving them a delicate fingered appearance; stem leaves are few and similar but smaller. From mid-spring to early summer the plant bears a loose open raceme of five to fifteen showy deep blue to purple flowers; each flower has five petal-like sepals, the uppermost prolonged backward into a slender curved spur about a centimetre and a half long, and four smaller true petals, the upper pair paler. The fruits are erect three-parted follicles that split to release dark wrinkled seeds. All parts contain toxic diterpenoid alkaloids.