Aquilegia saximontana

[Great Moravian]

Interesting links.... none of which look like the plant in IRG 7

The Aquilegia flabellata var. pumila at the Japanese
http://ptech.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/2008/04/post_869f.html
It certainly looks like the plant in IRG 7.

[maggiepie]

I am finding this thread very interesting.

Here are a couple of pics of seedlings of mine.

Aquilegia saximontana seedling



Aquilegia jonesii x saximontana

Lastly, an A. flabellata bought from a nursery

I don't know what the first three actually are but I like them a lot.

[TheOnionMan]

Interesting links.... none of which look like the plant in IRG 7

The Aquilegia flabellata var. pumila at the Japanese
http://ptech.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/2008/04/post_869f.html
It certainly looks like the plant in IRG 7.

Agreed.  Last night I too was looking at this Japanese blog site, lots of good pics of Aquilegia.  In the following link, way down near the bottom is a photo of what the grower purports to be the true A. saximontana.  Translating the page with Google Translate (which does a poor job), what I can make out is that this grower tried for 10 years to get the true plant, but in the photo he shows in 2006, believes he has the true plant.  I agree it looks right.  To facility finding the photo easier, in fair use I have uploaded a screen capture of that image (see 1st photo).  Here again we see the distinctly divergent spurs, mild hook to the spurs, and acute sepals.
http://sainohana.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/2006/05/index.html

Found a second page by the same Japanese grower in 2010, can't be sure from the translation, but I believe these pictures taken 4 years later might be seedling plants, and thus subject to hybridization.  Again, in fair use, I put two screen captures of the flowers side by side for comparison, showing characteristic spurs.
http://ptech.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/2010/04/post-3eb0.html

As an aside, here's another link on this same blog to A. flabellata var. pumila:
http://ptech.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/2009/04/aquilegia-flabe.html

And, just a curiosity, but a couple double-flowered dwarf Aquilegia that were found on Rebun Island, Japan
http://sainohana.cocolog-nifty.com/blog/2006/05/post_ad14.html

[TheOnionMan]

I am finding this thread very interesting.
Here are a couple of pics of seedlings of mine.

Aquilegia saximontana seedling

Aquilegia jonesii x saximontana

Lastly, an A. flabellata bought from a nursery

I don't know what the first three actually are but I like them a lot.

Helen, the first two look like A. flabellata (dwarf forms) or dwarf flabellata hybrid to me, not saximontana, although I agree that they're really cute.  The last one is an A. flabellata dwarf form as you've identified.  Hard to know about the one identified as jonesii x saximontana... really a choice little thing.  The degree of pubescence on the flowers and spurs seems stronger than jonesii alone, and the strength of the hooked spurs, indicate other species influences in my opinion.

[maggiepie]

Mark, I'm not at all sure that the first two are flabellata. I have lots of those and they all grow into a lovely little mound, these ones are only about half the height of the flabellata and the leaves look different. If they flower at the same time next year I will have a really good squizz at them.

I wish I had tried to get seed from them.
I don't suppose you know a way of getting rid of wee harlequin stinkbugs ?

[Maggi Young]

Has no-one else noticed the distinct differences in the "saximontana" plants - form flowers and foliage- between the first two of McMark's photos of Kelaidis plants and the third?

[TheOnionMan]

Mark, I'm not at all sure that the first two are flabellata. I have lots of those and they all grow into a lovely little mound, these ones are only about half the height of the flabellata and the leaves look different. If they flower at the same time next year I will have a really good squizz at them.

Helen, the first two look flabellata-esque to me, including the foliage, that is to say they are probably dwarf flabellata hybrids as suggested.  There could be saximontana genes in there too, just that I strongly doubt pure saximontana. 

Many forms of flabellata exist under a variety of names (nana, var. pumila, yezoense, akitensis, akitensis kurilensis, flabellata v. kurilensis), and as obtained via the seed exchanges from open-pollinated garden sources, well, we all know what happens to Aquilegia when grown from OP garden seed, you get aquilegia stew.  When I was a younger fellow, I was focused on columbines, and grew a large number of them, and had many versions of plants I would attribute to "flabellata lineage", and it was near impossible to get some species true from such OP seed.  I also grew a number of the dwarf columbines from collected sources, such as bertolonii and discolor, all which were charming, but in the open garden, with many columbines tending to be short-lived and seeding around, after a few years I could no longer be certain of their purity, they started stewing.

[mark smyth]

That Japanese person has some very nice ?miniature doubles

[Great Moravian]

Plants are variable in leaves. Compare the few-leaved A. flabellata var. pumila found in Rebun at
http://www.rebun-island.jp/en/hana/index.html
---

Spurs parallel, A. flabellata
---

Spurs parallel-convergent, A. flabellata
---

Leaves completely different, the plant is usually cultivated as A. bertolonii, which is not correct too, or A. pyrenaica, which is possible.
---

Spurs parallel, A. flabellata
---

Spurs divergent, A. saximontana
---

Spurs divergent, A. saximontana

[Maggi Young]

I refer again to McMark's scan of the drawings.... and to the two plants  shown..... the last looks like a saximontans but the first two pictures are surely, by his reasoning, laramiensis? 

Great Moravian...... I can see what you mean to say.... but the photos you show are displaying a different meaning to the one I understand of paralllel, for a start....... parallel means being the same distant apart along the length...... 

[Great Moravian]

I refer again to McMark's scan of the drawings.... and to the two plants  shown..... the last looks like a saximontans but the first two pictures are surely, by his reasoning, laramiensis? 

I am not certain which image should depict A. laramiensis. The flowers if it are usually whitish.

Great Moravian...... I can see what you mean to say.... but the photos you show are displaying a different meaning to the one I understand of paralllel, for a start....... parallel means being the same distant apart along the length...... 

Despite I am a mathematician, I don't expect plants to be geometric objects. All terms in botany are merely approximate.

[Maggi Young]

Despite I am a mathematician, I don't expect plants to be geometric objects. All terms in botany are merely approximate.

 Exactly!!

[Maggi Young]

I am not certain which image should depict A. laramiensis.

I rather thought the image labelled laramiensis??

[TheOnionMan]

I refer again to McMark's scan of the drawings.... and to the two plants  shown..... the last looks like a saximontans but the first two pictures are surely, by his reasoning, laramiensis? 

Don't be fooled by the line drawing and apparent size difference, once again, the scan depicts just 1 drawing of 1 plant each, it cannot take into account variability.  Little separates saximontana and laramiensis, mostly separated on flower color and geographical location, with other minor differences.  Both species can be 5-25 cm tall in the wild.  There are some very nice photos on the web of this species, maybe I'll post links, no photos of laramiensis have been posted on this topic yet.

From FONA key
Sepals and spurs white or nearly so; Wyoming.      Aquilegia laramiensis
Sepals and spurs blue; Colorado.                          Aquilegia saximontana

I call your Roll Eyes and raise by another Roll Eyes 

[Maggi Young]

McMark.... I'm not talking about scale.... look at the drawings, look at the leaf differences... now look at the pictures of the first plant in PK's trough... the leaves have their central section well clear, of the others, making a very distinct elongated triangular outline for the whole.....


I would be more than astonished if these different aquilegia were NOT as variable as 99.9 percent of other plants..... it is only humans who seek absolute delineations of species, to satisfy our assorted desires for listing and boxing things..... it would be nice to see that some cognisance was being taken of natural variability and that the various problems, mistakes, hiccups etc etc that have been listed earlier can apply just as well to one photo as another.
Life is rarely clear cut, botany is certainly no different...... there is little of exactitude in such matters.