Delphinium trolliifolium – Giant Larkspur – Ranunculaceae (The Buttercup Family)

Description Delphinium trolliifolium is a long-lived larkspur native to western North America known as giant larkspur and cow poison. This wildflower has large, shiny, deeply lobed dark green leaves and spectacular brilliant blue flowers with black and white central bees. The airy spikes can reach four feet high with the flowers spaced out along the stem providing an air effect different than hybrid Delphinium. In the wild, it grows in the shade of deciduous trees where it enjoys cool environments, never hot and dry, even found in standing water in spring and adapted to heavy, wet clay soils. In the garden provide consistently moist conditions. Plants will spread slowly from short, thick rhizomes into beautiful colonies. Fabulous for dramatic impact in the cottage and native plant garden, and for architectural height in the mid to back of the shady border. Attracts, hummingbirds, bees and butterflies. Plants are a larval host for various moth species. Very deer resistant. This species reaches the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State but has not been found in BC. Still, it is a near-native very much connected to the ecology of our bioregion and worth growing in our gardens.