"Is that a delphinium?" my neighbor asked. She leaned over my back picket fence and pointed at the tall blue Giant Imperial larkspur by the gate. I told her she had it half right. The best known of the larkspur other names is delphinium. The two words travel together so often that even seasoned gardeners swap one for the other. You will see larkspur also called delphinium on seed racks, at the nursery, and in most of the plant books on my shelf.
If you want the full spread, larkspur answers to more than one name. Gardeners reach for delphinium most of the time, but the plant also goes by staggerweed, knight's spur, and lark's heel. The tall wild species out west even earns its own label, duncecap larkspur. One flower, a whole drawer of names, and each one carries a small story about how people saw the plant.
The overlap has a real root. Larkspur is the proper common name for the annual Consolida species, the ones you sow fresh from seed each spring. True delphiniums are the tall perennials that come back on their own year after year. Botanists moved the annuals into their own group long ago, but the garden trade never quite caught up. You can find the same variety sold as larkspur in one catalog and delphinium in the next. That habit keeps the two names glued together on the rack.
So why does one flower need so many names? Larkspur has grown in cottage gardens for centuries, long before anyone agreed on Latin. Each region leaned on what the bloom looked like or what it did. Farmers who lost livestock called it staggerweed. Folks charmed by its shape called it knight's spur or lark's heel. The name delphinium comes from the Greek word for dolphin, after the bud's curved snout. All those habits stuck, and the plant kept every one. Old herbals list even more names, though these are the ones that survived onto modern seed racks.
Out west, the wild larkspurs collect names of their own. Ranchers and hikers know the tall mountain species as duncecap larkspur, a nod to the pointed cap each bud wears before it opens. It grows waist high in damp meadows and turns up on the same name lists as the garden kind. Its blue spikes look so much like the garden flower that hikers still stop to ask the delphinium question. One more name for the pile, and one more reason a quick chart helps.
The tangle of names matters most at the nursery. A label may read delphinium or larkspur for two plants that look almost the same on the bench. The name alone will not tell you which one you are carrying home. An annual larkspur finishes its whole life in one season, sets seed, and fades by fall. A perennial delphinium settles in and comes back for several years. Same flower to your eye, but a very different plan for the bed. Buy the wrong one, and you wait a year for blooms that never return.
So do not trust the name on the tag by itself. Check whether it says annual or perennial, or ask the grower which one they started from seed. That single detail tells you more than delphinium, larkspur, or any of the older labels ever will. It decides whether you are planting for one bright summer or for many.
Every one of these larkspur common names points back to the same spurred flower. A grower might print delphinium, staggerweed, or knight's spur on the tag. The name you meet just depends on who is selling and where they learned it. Learn the annual and perennial split, and the label stops mattering. You will pick the right plant no matter which name someone chose.
Read the full article: Larkspur Flower: Meaning, Growing, and Safety
