Aquilegia pubescens
Aquilegia pubescens is a perennial flowering plant in the family Ranunculaceae, endemic to the Sierra Nevada in California. It is usually known by the common name Sierra columbine, and less frequently as the alpine columbine or Coville's columbine.
Description
Aquilegia pubescens is a small species growing to in height. The rootstock is densely covered with the remains of previous years' leaves, and the stems are mostly smooth with sparse hairs towards the top. The leaves are ternate and the leaflets densely pubescent below, and somewhat less so on their upper surface. The 2–5 flowers are erect or spreading, rather than drooping. The characteristic nectar spurs may be up to long and the flowers up to wide. The sepals and the petals are generally cream or white, less often pink or yellow. The round, fused mouth protrudes, enclosing a cluster of long yellow stamens.Taxonomy
Aquilegia pubescens is part of a clade containing all the North American species of columbines that likely split from their closest relatives in East Asia in the mid-Pliocene, approximately 3.84 million years ago. It is closely related to the hummingbird-pollinated Aquilegia eximia, Aquilegia flavescens, and Aquilegia formosa.The Sierra columbine can hybridize with the lower-elevation Aquilegia formosa where their ranges overlap. This produces flowers with intermediate color, spur length, and orientation, as shown in the transition-series image, providing a change also in pollinator species: hawkmoths for A. pubescens and hummingbirds for A. formosa. Barriers to gene flow between the species are maintained primarily through their specialisation to different habitats, and secondarily to different pollinators.