Weeds
Consolida regalis S.F. Gray - Larkspur, Delphinium.
Synonym.
Delphinium consolida L.Systematic position.
Family Ranunculaceae, genus Consolida.Biological group.
Spring or winter annual weed.Morphology and biology.
Plant has weakly ramified root. Stalk upright, 25-60 cm, ramified in upper part, seldom simple, glabrous or slightly pubescent. Leaves 2-4 cm in length and almost the same in width, two or three times tripinnatisect, with narrow linear lobes; lower leaves petiolate, upper ones sessile. Bracts short, with accumbent hairs. Bright violet-blue zygomorphous flowers located in racemes. Five sepals oblong, obovate, blunt, sparsely pubescent from outside. Upper sepal with a calcar of 14-18 mm in length, enclosing trilobate nectary petal. Fruit is bare follicle, 12-15 mm in length. Seeds numerous, black-brown, covered with rows of short scales. Blossoming in July and August, fructifying in August and September. One plant produces to 67 thousand seeds germinating from depth of no more than 4-6 cm.Distribution.
European part of the former USSR, Ciscaucasia, Western and Eastern Siberia (adventive), Central Asia. General distribution includes Scandinavia (southern part), Middle Europe, Western Mediterranean, Balkans and Asia Minor; introduced in Northern America.Ecology.
Grows in forest, forest-steppe, and steppe zones. Unpretentious to soil conditions, developing better on light and well fertilized sandy soils. Moderately abundant in dry meadows and steppes, sparsely distributed in damp meadows and semideserts. It has less and less important significance as a segetal weed eastward of Ural, because the continental climate of Siberia and Kazakhstan does not favor to its development.Economic significance.
Segetal weed occuring in grain crops, mainly, winter cereals, especially rye, and in gardens also. Seeds ripen simultaneously with cultural plants and litter sowing material. Control measures include careful cleaning of seed material and chemical weeding.Related references.
Nikitin V.V. 1983. Weeds in the flora of the USSR. Leningrad: Nauka. 454 pp. (In Russian)Ramenskii L.G., Tsatsenkin I.A., Chizhikov O.N., Antipin N.A. 1956. Ecological evaluation of the fodder lands by vegetation cover. Moscow: Selkhozgiz, 472 pp. (In Russian)
Shishkin B.K., ed. 1957. Flora of the Leningrad Region. Leningrad: Leningrad University. V. 2, 240 pp. (In Russian)
Shishkin B.K., ed. 1963. Botanical atlas.Moscow & Leningrad: Selkhozgiz, 504 pp. (In Russian)
Ulyanova T.N., 1998. Weeds in the flora of Russia and other CIS states. St.Petersburg: VIR. 344 pp. (In Russian)
Volkov A.N. ed. 1935. Areas of distribution of the major weed plants in the USSR. Moscow & Leningrad: State Publishing House of Kolkhoz and Sovkhoz Literature. 152 pp. (In Russian)