Columbine, the state flower of Colorado

How to recognize it

The Colorado columbine is a bushy, clump-forming plant about one to two feet tall and wide. Its flowers are among the most elegant in the Rockies. Each upright bloom has five spreading outer sepals, usually lavender or sky blue, around five white petals that form a cup. The petals sweep back into long, slender spurs with small knobs at their tips, which hold the flower’s nectar. Bees are its main pollinators.

The classic color combination is blue or lavender around white, the colors that inspired the blue and white of Colorado’s flag, but wild plants range from nearly all white to deep blue and sometimes pinkish. The leaves grow mostly at the base and are divided into threes, much like the leaves of meadow-rue.

Where it grows

The columbine is native to the Rocky Mountains. In Colorado it grows from about 6,000 to 10,000 feet, in sagebrush and pinyon-juniper country, mountain shrubland, aspen groves, Douglas-fir and spruce-fir forest and even alpine tundra. It is especially common in aspen stands and likes rich, moist soil with light shade. Depending on elevation it blooms from about April to July.

Where to see it

Head for Colorado’s mountains in late spring and summer. Look in aspen groves and moist, partly shaded meadows and slopes from the foothills up to the subalpine zone. In the high country the main bloom usually comes in early to midsummer.

Protected by law

Colorado gives its state flower legal protection. A 1925 law, still on the books, declares it the duty of every citizen to protect the columbine from waste or destruction. On public land and along highways, nobody may uproot the plant, and no one may gather more than 25 stems, buds or blossoms in one day. On private land, picking it requires the owner’s consent. Breaking these rules is a civil infraction.

The state flower since 1899

The General Assembly adopted the columbine as the state flower by Senate Bill 261, approved on April 4, 1899. Its link to Colorado runs deep: blue and white are said to be among the flag’s colors partly in its honor, and the state song, adopted in 1915, is “Where the Columbines Grow.”

The plant is lovely but not edible. All parts of the columbine are poisonous if eaten.