Colorado Blue Columbine (Aquilegia coerulea)

The Colorado Blue Columbine was designated as Colorado’s State Flower on April 4, 1899. Last year, Richard saw in a cartoon by XKCD that the most observed plant in the state of Colorado was the Common Mullein, an introduced noxious weed. He set out to remedy this botheration with the goal of moving the plant from 7th to 1st place on iNat by Colorado’s Sesquicentennial (150th) Birthday on Aug. 1, 2026. Currently, after ~1500 observations in June, we are at #2 with only about 350 to go. If you would like to join the effort, take photos of the Colorado Columbine out in nature with your location data on and upload them into iNaturalist. If you would like to join the Colorado Columbine Challenge to keep track of things – including those with the most observations, please do! Richard is currently in 4th place with 78 observations, while Tamera is 7th with 46.

There are a lot of animals in the scientific name of the Colorado Columbine with Aquilegia coming from the Latin word for eagle due to the 5 blue backward hooked nectar spurs looking like eagle talons, while coerulea means sky blue. Columbine is from the word for dove, since the unopened flower bud may resemble doves. Finally, the family is Ranunculaceae (the Buttercups) where Rana means frog and unculus means little since many of the Buttercup species are found in wet habitats like marshes, streams or ponds. Columbines make great flowers for local gardens with availability at local nurseries, as well as online from garden shops such as High Country Gardens or from seed.