Common Name: Columbine, Granny's Bonnet
Description: Perennial herbs from slendy woody rhizones.
Leaves basal with alternate cauline leaves. Leaf blades ternately compound, leaflets lobed, margins crenate.
Inflorescences terminal, 1–10-flowered cymes or solitary flowers, bracts leaf-like. Flowers bisexual; sepals not persistent in fruit, 5; petals 5, white to blue (yellow or red), with a tubular spur; stamens many; scalelike staminodes usually present between stamens and pistils; pistils 5–10, simple; ovules many per pistil; beak present.
Fruit cylindric follicles with a terminal beak. Seed sblack, smooth.
Distribution and occurrence: About 70 species; with much variablity within species.
Text by Louisa Murray (Sep 2016) Taxon concept: Flora of North Amercia
One species in NSW: Aquilegia vulgaris |
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