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Aquilegia canadensis
Also called Honeysuckle, Meeting Houses, Wild Columbine, American Columbine, Canada Columbine, Red Bell, Wild Red Columbine
Red columbine is a native North American woodland perennial with nodding red and yellow flowers, grown widely in gardens. Its key to success is partial shade and well-drained soil with steady moisture.
Aquilegia canadensis, the Canadian columbine, Canada columbine, eastern red columbine, or wild columbine, is a species of flowering plant in the buttercup family. It is a perennial plant that is native to the woodlands and rocky areas in eastern North America in both the United States and southern Canada. It readily hybridizes with other plants in the columbine genus and is a common garden plant.
Aquilegia canadensis is a highly decorative plant, valued for its attractive foliage and showy flowers. For this reason it is widely grown outside its native region, in temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere.
The plant grows best in light to moderate shade, and prefers well-drained sandy loams, thriving in limestone-based or circumneutral soils. Plants grown in soils that are too moist or rich may produce weak plants, and have a shorter lifespan. Despite being a short-lived perennial, it self seeds very readily, allowing it to persist for many years. Seedlings generally flower in their second year. Cool-moist stratification at 5 °C (41 °F) for three to four weeks may speed sprouting, but it is not required for germination. Mature plants are able to tolerate periods of drought, but growth is best under consistent moisture. Seeds can be stored for three to four months in seedbags at 5 to 6 °C (41–43 °F).
Aquilegia canadensis is a native to eastern and central North America, from New Brunswick to northern Florida and west to Saskatchewan and Texas. It is the sole native columbine from eastern North America, though smallflower columbine (Aquilegia brevistyla) is reported as far east as Clay County, Minnesota and northern parts of Ontario and the non-native European columbine (Aquilegia vulgaris) has escaped from cultivation in Canada, the northeast, and parts of the south.
Aquilegia alpina · Aquilegia bertolonii · Golden columbine · Colorado blue columbine · Fan columbine · Western columbine · Oriental Columbine · Columbine · Columbine
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Aquilegia canadensis by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
