698 Ulysses Aldrovandi

white petals were seen joined together without a golden center; since the calyx of the flower, perhaps due to the hardness of the membrane, could not be dilated, the fused petals represented a monstrous flower, as seen in Image XVII.

Nor should we wonder at this, since this same hardness of the membrane in the calyces of Narcissi has produced a similar effect. For this reason, the keeper of the gardens is accustomed to dilate such a membrane with small scissors so that a monstrous flower does not break out; otherwise, through compression, the petals of the flowers fuse together, and monsters of this kind are produced, where only white petals appear, glued together without their yellow center.

A few years ago, monstrous buttercup flowers also filled us with admiration. To Dioscorides, the buttercup is known as *batrachion*, because it delights in damp places just as frogs (*ranae*) do. It is also called *selinon agrion*, or wild celery, because the shape of its leaves imitates that of celery. It is even called the "wicked herb" (*Herba scelerata*), because wicked beggars use it to provoke ulcers on their legs in order to extort alms. Common folk sometimes refer to this plant as "crow’s foot" or "cock’s foot," based on the shape of its leaves. Dioscorides and Pliny recorded many kinds of this plant, but Bauhin, in his *Phytopinax*, enumerated many more, listing forty-four different species.

That eighth species in Bauhin's order—the upright double garden buttercup, or the "crow’s foot with a full flower" in Brunfels, and the "many-flowered polyanthous buttercup" (or the first garden vegetable buttercup) in Lobelius’s *Observations* and his *Images*—sometimes exhibited eighteen flowers, such as those seen in Image XVIII. Indeed, at the tops of the stalks, two or even three fused flowers emerged together. This could have stemmed from no other source than an abundance of floral matter and a formative power that was unable to segregate the flowers from one another.

In confirmation of these claims, a mid-yellow polyanthous Narcissus was once seen in Bologna with two different flowering stalks joined and fused, compacted by the extravagance of nature. One of these stalks displayed three flowers and the other four, but a certain furrow ran along both sides as if to separate the stalks. This doubled stalk, with its seven seemingly joined flowers, was a lovely, monstrous, and admirable sight.

We also wish to present for inspection another most wonderful monster observed in the flowers of the Columbine (*Aquilina*) around the end of April in the year 1593. This is the plant that Costeus believed to be the *Pothon* of the ancients, and Cesalpino the *Iasion* of Theophrastus. Dalechamp believed it to be the *dios anthos*, or "flower of Jove," mentioned in Athenaeus. Fabio Colonna established it to be the *Isopyrum* of Dioscorides, and finally Gesner designated it *Leontostomum*.

Whatever the case may be, today this plant is called *Aquilegia* or *Aquilina*, on account of the hooked tips of the flowers which resemble the talons of an eagle (*aquila*). In its leaves, it agrees in some way with the greater celandine, though the Columbine’s leaves are rounder and softer. For this reason, the plant is called "wild celandine" and "middle celandine" by Castore Durante, and is called "Columbine" by others; its flowers, however, are related to the larkspur.

Five varieties of this plant are listed in the *Phytopinax*, but many more are observed in the public garden of Bologna, differing in size, color, and the multitude of their petals. Its flower can be simple or full, and its colors include blue, white, reddish, variegated, purple, and even white sprinkled with purple streaks. Indeed, it sometimes grows with a degenerate, rose-like, inverted flower.

And so Nature seems to have gathered all these aforementioned varieties into a single Columbine plant to create the most monstrous specimen, which we offer for viewing in Image XIX. It produced quite varied flowers of an unusually admirable form; from the same root—and indeed from the same stem—it brought forth some blue flowers, while others were partly blue and partly herbaceous in color, hardly distinct from the leaves of the plant. Those that were green in color emulated the appearance of a rose, with their petals folded over themselves in a double row.

No cavity of the spurs was visible above, nor did any curved tails appear below, and the stamen of the flowers was not yellow, but somewhat reddish. Moreover, the structures that usually stand out in the middle of the flower like the pods of a seed-vessel were, in the absence of any actual seed-vessel, turning into thin leaflets