The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Aquilegia confusa
Einsel's Columbine is a perennial wildflower of the Alps in Switzerland and Italy, with violet flowers from June to September. Its key requirement is partial shade or sun depending on elevation, and it prefers moisture.
Aquilegia confusa is a partially accepted species of flowering plant of the genus Aquilegia (columbines) in the family Ranunculaceae that is endemic to the eastern and southern European Alps in Switzerland and Italy.
Growing between 8 cm (3.1 in) and 57 cm (22 in) tall, A. confusa produces fragrant violet flowers between June and September. The entirety of the plant, particularly its seeds, are toxic to humans.
Due to the isolated character of Aquilegia confusa populations – the result of glaciers expanding and contracting – the species has distinctly sciophilous (shade-tolerant) and heliophilous (sun-tolerant) forms that favor the lower and upper elevation brackets respectively. In the species's eastern range, the species features glandular leaves. These glands are associated with smells that attract pollinators in environments that are more competitive as well as shaded, secluded locales. This eastern range coincides with the A. confusa's range overlapping with the more common Aquilegia einseleana.
Aquilegia alpina · Aquilegia amaliae · Fan Columbine · Aquilegia apuana · Aquilegia aradanica · Aquilegia aragonensis · Dark Columbine · Aquilegia atrovinosa · Atwood's Columbine · Aquilegia aurea · Aquilegia ballii · Aquilegia baluchistanica
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Aquilegia confusa 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.
