Red Columbine, Wild Columbine, Aquilegia canadensis, wildflowers of the eloise butler Wildflower Garden

	Plants of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden
	Common Name	Scientific Name	Plant Family	Garden Location	Prime Season
	Wild Columbine	Aquilegia canadensis L.	Buttercup (Crowfoot) (Ranunculaceae)	Woodland & Upland	Spring to Late Summer
Other names and notes	(Red Columbine, Canada Columbine). Columbines have showy nodding flowers with each petal having a long spur at the back forming a tube. Red Columbine has brilliant scarlet flowers with yellow centers. The long stamens protrude. Compound leaves are leaflets that grow in threes with deep lobes. Upper stem leaves can be much reduced. A plant can live for 3 to 5 years, height is 1 to 3 feet. There is a vertical underground stem (a caudex) and in mid-summer the plant will die back to the caudex. It self-seeds and from a single plant you can acquire quite a patch. First year growth from seed is usually just a basal clump which can be easily transplanted. Seeds can be easily gathered from the drying stem and sown where plants are desired. Red Columbine is usually pollinated by hummingbirds and there are four known species of bees that can also pollinate the plant. It survives in a wide range of habitats within USDA hardiness zones 3 to 8. Read Eloise Butler's notes below.

Notes: This plant is indigenous to the Garden area. Eloise Butler catalogued it on May 25, 1907. It is native to Minnesota in all but seven counties. Its range in the U.S. is the eastern 2/3rds of the country as far west as Kansas. There are known folk medicinal uses for the seeds and for the roots.

Eloise Butler wrote: "A much admired genus of the crowfoot family is the Columbine, which has one representative in Minnesota (Red Columbine, Aquilegia canadensis L.). All the columbines make a brave showing, from the cultivated ones of different hues to the peerless large white species, the state flower of Colorado, (Rocky Mountain Columbine, Aquilegia caerulea James). But our species holds its own among them all, bourgeoning in red and yellow in rich relief against the background of gray rock, as it nods from boulder crevices. The columbine has both calyx and corolla and both are colored. The long spurred petals gorged with nectar for the entertainment of insect guests have given rise to the name honeysuckle which, to avoid confusion, would better be kept for the true honeysuckle in no wise related to the columbine. The foliage of the columbine is fern-like as is the meadow rue and others of the same family." Published May 28, 1911, Sunday Minneapolis Tribune.

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References: Plant characteristics are generally from sources 15, 16, 30, 31, 33, W2 & W3. Distribution principally from W2 and also 31, 34 and W1. Planting history generally from 1, 4 & 4a. Other sources by specific reference. See Reference List for details.

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