''Delphinium grandiflorum'' is a species of ''

Delphinium ''Delphinium'' is a genus of about 300 species of annual and perennial flowering plants in the family Ranunculaceae, native throughout the Northern Hemisphere and also on the high mountains of tropical Africa. The genus was erected by Carl Linn ...

'' known by the common names Siberian larkspur and Chinese Delphinium. It is native to

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

and China. There are several popular

cultivar A cultivar is a type of cultivated plant that people have selected for desired traits and when propagated retain those traits. Methods used to propagate cultivars include: division, root and stem cuttings, offsets, grafting, tissue culture ...

s in several colours which are grown as

ornamental plant Ornamental plants or garden plants are plants that are primarily grown for their beauty but also for qualities such as scent or how they shape physical space. Many flowering plants and garden varieties tend to be specially bred cultivars that ...

s, including 'Blue Butterfly', 'Summer Morning', 'Blue Mirror', and 'Summer Stars'. Like many other larkspurs, this plant is poisonous. It is much shorter and more compact than the more familiar tall ''D. elatum'', with dispersed flowers, rather than single spikes. It is a short-lived

perennial A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives more than two years. The term ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the years") is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. The term is also wid ...

that is suggested to be treated like an annual in many cases due to its unpredictability in terms of returning the next season. It readily provides seed pods for reseeding, although allowing it to go to seed hastens the end of its flowering. This species is commonly considered to have the most intense blue flowers of all species in its genus, although that depends on the particular variety, the particular plant, the freshness of the blossom, and the growing conditions. In sunlight the flowers can appear to glow or look fluorescent due to the intensity of the blue pigment. Plants are available with the following colors: deep blue, medium blue, pale blue, white, and light pale pink. There are no lavender varieties, unlike with rocket larkspur (''D. ajacis'' or ''consolida'') and ''elatum'' plants. Unlike those two species, this one is typically purchased by gardeners from nurseries rather than grown from seed, unless the gardener already has plants and collects seed or lets the plant reseed. Rocket larkspur seed is much less expensive and spike-type delphinium seed is more widespread for purchase. Nursery-grown ''grandiflorum'' plants are readily available in the United States and can be found at stores such as

Walmart Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarter ...

and Lowe's. Dwarf and normal height varieties are available but even the normal height plants are short when compared to the cultivated spike-type delphiniums.

References

External links

Kemper Garden CenterPerennial Resources
grandiflorum Garden plants Plants described in 1753 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus {{Ranunculales-stub