Columbine

Eastern Red Columbine

Common name: Canada columbine, eastern red columbine, or wild columbine

Scientific name: Aquilegia canadensis

Family: Buttercup, Ranunculaceae

Bloom period: April to May or June

Where to see it: Along the roadside edges of the Building 1 and 2 gardens and scattered in the Village Green garden.

What to look for: This easily recognizable, unusually-shaped flower that nods atop its stem has lemon yellow petals with scarlet-red spurs and sepals (modified leaves supporting the petals). The spurs are backward-pointed nectar tubes (nectaries).

Benefit to pollinators: The eastern red columbine attracts a variety of pollinators with its deep nectaries which are perfectly shaped for hummingbirds and long-tongued insects, including butterflies, bumble bees, and sweat bees. The rusty-patched bumble bee, though, rather than making the effort to climb into the flower to get to the nectar has been known to chew a hole in the top of the spurs as a short cut to the nectar. Eastern red columbine is often one of the first flowers available for ruby-throated hummingbirds as they migrate into the region each spring. In fact, the range map for eastern columbine overlaps almost perfectly with the U.S. portion of the ruby-throated hummingbird’s range map. The co-adaptation between hummingbirds and the red species of columbines is so great that the red columbines produce nectar with almost twice the sugar content compared to species with blue or yellow flowers. The higher sugar content is presumably an adaptation to be more attractive to hummingbirds.

More information: The red columbine is the only columbine that occurs naturally in eastern North America. Native Americans used various parts of red columbine in herbal remedies for ailments such as headache, sore throat, fever, rash caused by poison ivy, stomatitis, kidney and urinary problems, and heart problems. Native American men also rubbed crushed seeds on their hands as a love charm.