Sierra columbine

Aquilegia pubescens, the Sierra or Coville's columbine, is a perennial herb of the buttercup family endemic to the high Sierra Nevada of California, where it grows on open, rocky slopes and talus in subalpine and alpine zones. From a stout taproot it forms low rosettes of finely divided, blue-green, softly hairy (pubescent) foliage, above which slender stems rise 20 to 50 centimetres. The large, erect, fragrant flowers have cream to pale yellow or pink sepals 15 to 25 millimetres long and long, straight, nectar-filled spurs 25 to 40 millimetres long, adaptations to pollination by hawkmoths. Where its range overlaps that of the red, hummingbird-pollinated Aquilegia formosa, the two hybridize, producing intermediate flower colour, spur length and orientation. The dry fruits are clusters of erect follicles that split to shed shiny black seeds.