Review by Ed Quillen
Gardening – November 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine
Columbines: Aquilegia, Paraquilegia, and Semiaquilegia
by Robert Nold
Published in 2003 by Timber Press
ISBN 0-88192-588-8
AT FIRST GLANCE, and indeed after several more- than-glances, this book appeared to be aimed solely at the serious gardener who holds an advanced degree in botany. More examination revealed that it also offers pleasure to the general reader, thanks largely to the author’s wry style.
As every good Coloradan knows, the Rocky Mountain columbine (Aquilegia coerulea) is the official state flower, and further, the official state song is “Where the Columbines Grow.” Our yard qualifies, for Martha has planted dozens of them, and they bloom profusely in May and June. (Our yard also has an official state tree, a Colorado Blue Spruce, but so far we have not managed to acquire an official state mammal, the Bighorn Sheep.)
Since Martha is the gardener here, I asked her about Robert Nold’s columbine-growing instructions: “Buy a plant, dig a hole in any old soil in full sun or dappled shade, put the plant in the hole, push dirt around the plant, and water it.”
“Sounds about right,” she said, “except they also grow pretty well from seed.”
However, that’s just for one species of columbine. Before reading Columbines, I had assumed that they came in only two sizes (smaller ones near and above timberline), and only three color schemes: traditional blue and white in the wild, and some reds and yellows in town.
In fact, they come in many more shades (white, pink, purple, orange, all shown in glorious color in this book), and there are perhaps 60 species, not counting the dozens of variations of the A. vulgaris, which promiscuously interbreeds with our A. coerulea, so that genetically pure stocks are a rarity.
Columbines belong to the buttercup family, and grow throughout the northern hemisphere, and probably came across the Bering Strait, along with humans, to settle in North America. They generally prefer mountains (Alps, Caucasus, Himalayas, Rockies), but there are species found only in Texas. Just how many species is a subject of contention among botanists, since the experts use different criteria for classification.
THE PLANT’S NAME comes from the Latin columba, meaning “dove-like,” supposedly because the flower resembles a dove. That also accounts for an archaic English name, culverwort, which means “dove-shaped plant” — and a word which surprisingly is not mentioned in this book. We use it at home to distinguish, when necessary, between the plants in the yard and our older daughter, Columbine.
(I often give the derivation of her name as “An old Ute word which means ‘My parents were hippies in the mountains.'” It actually resulted from our residence in Kremmling at the time, which was the setting for a Zane Grey novel, The Mysterious Rider, which had a heroine named Columbine — until then, we’d never thought of Columbine as a person’s name.)
Most of this book explains the various species, some of which are quite rare, and it is in these botanic descriptions that Nold provides wry commentaries that brighten the dry science: “In any case, this species is so far on the fringe of columbine consciousness, let alone cultivation, that it hardly seems to make any difference what name is used.” “Aquilegia scopulorm seems to be short-lived in the garden, although the finger of blame for the repeated early demise of the many plants that have passed under my care could, just possibly, be pointed at me.” “Haunted by its specific epithet, Aquilegia desertorum is offered in the nursery trade as a xeric plant, which it is not.”
These specific descriptions also mention reputed medicinal uses — as an aphrodisiac, a congestion cure, or a sniffle remedy in various locales and cultures. To my disappointment, Nold generally does not explain whether the leaves were smoked, eaten, or steeped as a tea, or whether the flowers or seeds or roots, rather than the leaves, were deemed medicinal. We do learn that the seeds of our Colorado columbine were “chewed by the Gosiute to alleviate abdominal pains,” but he provides no particulars on how the same plant “was also used for heart ailments.”
Nonetheless, I found this book quite engaging, although I was glad it had a glossary, since words like cespitose and triternate are not in common use, at least in this household.
If you’re a mountain gardener with a hankering for some columbine lore and variety, you’ll enjoy this book, and if you know such a gardener, this could simplify your holiday shopping. Just looking at the pictures was a delight, and as a Colorado buff, I found much else to enjoy.