3. Aquilegia L. Columbine 



Perennial herbs from a stout caudexlike rhizome; leaves petiolate, 2 or 3 times 

 ternately compounded: flowers regular, few but conspicuous; sepals 5, short-clawed 

 at base, petal-like, soon deciduous; petals 5, the terminal portion expanded, pro- 

 longed backward from the base below the flower into an elongate hollow spur that 

 secretes nectar from an internal gland at its apex; stamens numerous, separate but 

 often more or less connivent, the innermost staminodal; filaments elongate; anthers 

 oval; pistils usually 5, erect, each prolonged into a slender style; fruits a several- 

 seeded slender-beaked follicle. 



About 100 species in the North Temperate Zone. 



1. Flowers basically bluish or purplish 1. A. coerulea. 



1. Flowers yellow (2) 



2(1). Sepals about 17 mm. wide; petal blade about 2 cm. long and 16 mm. wide; 

 leaves biternate; endemic in Sierra Vieja Mts., Presidio Co., Texas 

 2. A. Hinckleyana. 



2. Sepals 5-10 mm. wide or (if wider) the spur more than 1 dm. long; leaves 



often triternate (3) 



3(2). Petal blade 8-16 mm. long; spurs 4-9 cm. long, rarely longer; flowers 

 clear-yellow; petioles to 2 dm. long; leaflets about 4 cm. long or 

 less 3. A. chrysantha. 



3. Petal blade 15-30 mm. long; spurs 10-15 cm. long; flowers pale-yellow; 



petioles to 3 dm. long; leaflets usually more than 4 cm. long 



4. A. longissima. 



1. Aquilegia coerulea James. Rocky Mountain columbine. 



Caudex simple to somewhat branched; leaves mainly basal, somewhat reduced 

 upward on the stem, glaucous, biternate, the segments short-petiolate, cuneate- 

 obovate, from shallowly to very deeply 1 to 3 times cleft, usually somewhat 

 pubescent beneath, 1-3 cm. long; stems 2-6 (-8) dm. tall, sparsely pubescent to 

 glabrous below, glandular-pubescent above; flowers usually several or rarely 

 solitary, erect; sepals light- to deep-blue or somewhat purplish, lanceolate to 

 oblong-lanceolate or nearly elliptic, 2-4 cm. long; petals colored similarly to the 

 sepals but the blades usually much lighter to nearly white; spurs slender, nearly 

 straight, mostly 3.5-4.5 cm. long, truncate, the blades about half as long; inner 

 stamens modified into membranous staminodia; follicles mostly 5 or 6 but some- 

 times as many as 10, erect, densely glandular-puberulent, 2-3 cm. long. 



On seepage banks above lakes and on slopes, in wet soil along mt. streams, 

 in N. M. (Rio Arriba. San Juan, San Miguel and Taos cos.) and Ariz. (Apache 

 and Coconino cos.). June-July; Mont, to N.M. and Ariz. 



The beautiful columbine is the state flower of Colorado. 



2. AquUegia Hinckleyana Munz. 



Stems 5-7 dm. high, glabrous and glaucous below, glandular-pubescent 

 and freely branched in the inflorescence; basal leaves biternate, glabrous 

 and pale-green above, glabrous and more glaucous beneath; petioles glabrous, 

 rather slender, 2.5-3 dm. long, the glaucous primary petiolules subglabrous and 

 2.5-5 cm. long, the secondary petiolules to 25 mm. long and sparingly pilose; 

 leaflets suborbicular, rather thin in texture, 2-4 cm. long, cleft to about the 

 middle, each segment then with 2 or 3 rounded-oblong teeth or lobes; cauline 

 leaves several, gradually reduced upward; pedicels to about 7 cm. long; flowers 

 suberect, golden-yellow, subglabrous; sepals spreading, ovate, obtuse, about 25 

 mm. long and 17 mm. wide; petal blades spatulate-obovate, rounded truncate, 

 about 2 cm. long and 16 mm. wide; spurs slender, straight or slightly curved, 

 about 4 cm. long and 5 mm. wide at base, then gradually narrowed to almost 



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