Aquilegia coerulea / Colorado blue columbine
- blue to white to pink or yellow tinged
- long spurs (tails) as long as the petals are large
- blooms late spring and July (stragglers in August)
Also known as: blue columbine, Rocky Mountain columbine
Blue columbine is one of the most recognizable flowers in the Valley with its bright blue, or blue-ish petals, and its long tails. Despite the name, this species actually comes in both blue and white forms. The blue-petaled form grows in the Valley and SE Idaho generally, but is also the state flower of Colorado. We don’t mind, really. The white-petaled variety is more widespread and certainly plentiful in the Valley. Yellow tinged and pink flowers can also occur… these don’t look anything like the yellow columbine or the pink and yellow “western columbine” species, so confusion on that score is unlikely.
The columbine flower has been described by others as “large”, but it looks like the size a flower should be (to me) so I have called it “normal” sized.
Columbines are recognizable even without the flowers present because of their distinctive leaves (see gallery). Each leaf has 3 parts and each part has 3 lobes.
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