Is this Aquilegia chaplinei?

[maggiepie]

Was very pleased to find this flower opening a few days ago.
Label has washed clean and after googling for awhile I am wondering if it is A. chaplinei.
I don't remember which seedex supplied the seed.

[annew]

This is what I have as chaplinei, also from a seed exchange, it has very small delicate foliage, blue-grey, and flowers at about 50cm high. The second picture is what I have as A. flavescens.

[Lori S.]

Anne,
Here are a few photos from the local mountains of Aquilegia flavescens - short spurs; (the orangey ones in this link may be A. formosa or hybrids with it of A. flavescens - note the straight, short spurs; only those two species are in the area, and some sources suggest A. formosa only occurs further north along the Rockies)... From the look of the long, narrow spurs on yours, either there's a great deal of variation in the species from area to area, or perhaps your seeds were the result of cross-pollination with other columbines (likely in the garden), something they are certainly famous for!

http://nargs.org/smf/index.php?topic=151.msg7112#msg7112

[maggiepie]

Thanks for the pics, Anne, will consider mine an hybrid of something or other.

Lori, thanks for the link, was nice to see all the pics.

[annew]

Hi Lori, Thanks for the link. I always take the naming of aquilegias from seed to be suspect, even though I get wild-collected seeds when I can. The flavescens you show is very pretty, hopefully I'll get that species correctly named sometime!