Oil Shale Columbine
Aquilegia barnebyi
Family:
Buttercup (Ranunculaceae)
AKA:
Barneby's Columbine
Photo taken on:
Unknown
Location:
Denver Botanic Gardens, CO
Life Zones:
Montane
Habitat:
Moist cliff walls, talus, on shale
Grows to 2½ feet high with mostly basal leaves divided into rounded lobes that have a bluish waxy coating. Flowers can be erect or nodding with pale pink sepals, long pink spurs and yellow, cream or pink petals. Bright yellow stamens protrude from the flower.
It is is endemic to the Green
River drainage of Colorado and Utah. It is abundant at Hanging Lake and
easily identified as the USFS has a sign at the lake. In my photo
the
flower is badly
out of focus, although not bad of the leaves. The beautiful photo at left is from the
Denver Botanic Gardens website.
Photo taken on:
August 9, 2003
Location:
Hanging Lake, White River NF, CO
Flora of North America reference.