It's been a banner year for many plants, Aquilegia among them: since one of the loveliest columbines is our state flower, most Colorado gardeners have a thing about the genus--and I'm no exception. Beginning with this picture (scanned from a slide) taken decades ago in the Rock Alpine Garden:
Aquilegia alpina? A compact vulgaris? You tell me...
I saw this growing at the Reykjavik Botanical Garden last summer--and Mike Kintgen had planted it in Denver--when I find it I shall add the Icelandic version of this Balkan anomaly.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury: almost 200 people looked at this
Aquilegia post before I was able to get my hands on this image taken at the Reykjavik Botanical gardenon the 27 of June, 2015: I did have to search through several vast hard disk to find it (my organizational skills are...complicated). But I found it and was able to blow it up even a bit....it is so amazing that a plant from the Balkans has evolved to resemble so much the yellow columbines of the American Madrean province...
Enough said. I am dumbfounded by technology.
This seems to match up to
Aquilegia bertollonii--one of the loveliest miniatures from Europe.
The amazing spurless variant of our native columbine:
Aquilegia caerulea v. daileyae
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| Aquilegia caerulea v. daileyae |
This apparently is a mutation on the typical form (shown next) with an extra chromosome. I grew over half a century ago as a young man from seed I purchased from Drakes in Scotland: I can only wonder where Jack Drake got it!
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| Aquilegia caerulea |
A corner of my wonderful patch of our state flower in my woodland garden. Still the best! The lavender fragrance is haunting.
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| Aquilegia caerulea |
While I was uploading pix of
A. aurea from the Reykjavik Botanical garden, why not upload their perfect specimen of
A. caerulea--blooming in Iceland much as it blooms on thousands of mountains in the Colorado Rockies...Ain't our modern era grand? If you take Icelandic air--by all means take their wonderful option to lay over a while and visit their fabulous public gardens!
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| Aquilegia canadensis 'Corbet' |
The wonderful dwarf, albino form of the eastern columbine: almost looks more like our native red one! This was taken in Allen Bush's amazing garden (chockablock full of columbines)...
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| Aquilegia canadensis 'Corbet' with Globularia cordifolia at Allen's |
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| Aquilegia cazorlensis |
I only got one picture (back in the bad old days of film) of this resplendent beauty that I grew in a trough...I hope one day I might hike the hills of Cazorla and find this (and some other elusive treasures) myself!
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| Aquilegia hinkleyi |
Not named for the redoubtable Pacific Northwestern Plantsman--although perhaps after one of his uncles? This hauntingly beautiful form of chrysantha is from Texas, with incredibly long spurs. A must have! Growing in the Childrens Garden at Denver Botanic Gardens.
Our 'Denver Gold' strain of
Aquilegia chrysantha--ten times more vigorous than any other columbine. This threatens to swamp all woodland gardens in Colorado given half a chance. Since the flowers are the size of small Eastern states, fragrant and since it blooms non-stop for four or five months, who cares?
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| Aquilegia elegantula |
Our petite and aptly named miniature red columbine of Western Colorado, photographed here on Kebler Pass on an unforgettable trip as guide to the Ratzeputz gang.
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| My only stone trough, featuring Aquilegia flabellata 'Nana' |
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| Aquilegia flabellata 'Nana' |
This was growing in one of our local botanical gardens--not sure which: you need to label where slides were photographed, Panayoti! Remember that!
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| Aquilegia flabellata 'Nana' closeup--in my garden this spring |
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| Aquilegia fragrans |
In my garden last year or the year before. Love this Himalayan--and it is fragrant indeed!
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| Aquilegia glandulosa |
The "other" best lbigger columbine. Photographed in the Kazakhstan Altai in 2009.
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| Aquilegia glandulosa taken a year and several months later on a different pass in Kazakhstan. |
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| Aquilegia jonesii |
Queen of the dwarfs. Taken in the Bighorns two years ago. I got even better pictures this year but they're on another computer. Sorry!
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| Aquilegia laramiensis |
Probably our rarest columbine--at least in the Rockies. And an especially nice one that blooms a long time and usually breeds true from seed--even with other columbines around. Introduced to cultivation by a Mathematics Professor from Ithaca New York some 70 years ago, it died out of cultivation and Jim and Jenny Archibald (and independently Gwen and myself) re-collected it in 1987: it has remained in cultivation ever since. A mountain lion walked around our tent the night before we collected the seed--our three month old daughter slept through it, but I heard the breathing and found the tracks the next morning...
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| Aquilegia ottonis ssp. amaliae being photographed by Lefteri (Liberto) Dariotis (Dario) on the Thessalian Olympus |
There are some days you want preserved forever in a glass ball or indelible print. In my case it's a few weeks...
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| Aquilegia ottonis ssp. amaliae |
What Lefteri was photographing: thank Heavens for telephoto lenses!
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| Aquilegia ottonis ssp. amaliae |
One last shot
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| Aquilegia saximontana on Pikes Peak |
Another picture taken on the trip with the Ratzeputz gang...
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| Aquilegia scopulorum at the Betty Ford Alpine Garden in Vail |
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Aquilegia scopulorum in my garden many years ago.
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| Aquilegia sibirica |
Taken in June, 2009 on the Austrian Road, Kazakhstan Altai.
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| Aquilegia sibirica |
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| Aquilegia hybrids |
The Bush garden in Louisville, Kentucky was full of wonderful hybrid columbines--the hybrids are often well worth growing, longer lived and just as lovely as the species...
Another Bush garden columbine--love this near white...
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| Aquilegia saximontana x flabellata |
And my own little hybrid to end the show: alas, it died weeks after it finished blooming. But it lives again in cyberspace!
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