Aquilegia ecalcarata - Spurless Columbine Seeds - Exotic Rare Perennial Cut Flowers - New

This genus belongs to the Ranunculaceae family, and contains around 70 species found over much of the temperate and subarctic Northern Hemisphere. This is an adaptable genus, with species and varieties suitable for a range of situations including woodlands, rockeries, and perennial borders, and they are well known for their dainty long-spurred flowers, which are borne in clusters atop wiry stems. The genus name is derived from the Latin aquila, meaning eagle, and lego, meaning to gather suggesting that the spurs situated at the base of the flower resemble the closing talons of an eagle.

Aquilegia species are clump-forming perennials with fine-stemmed, often blue-green foliage that emerges from a woody rootstock. The leaves are divided into small fan-shaped leaflets, often resembling maidenhair-fern fronds in shape, if not in size.

Aquilegia ecalcarata commonly known as Spurless Columbine is a delightful and graceful plant that forms a mound or tuft of finely divided, ferny-looking leaves, bearing upright stems with graceful nodding flowers in shades of deep violet to wine purple during late spring and early summer. A rare plant, native to open woodlands in China, it is a very close cousin to the normal aquilegias differing in that the flowers lack the usual spurs at the back. This is a superb plant for edging, in the rock garden or bright woodland. It is an excellent border perennial that also makes excellent cut flowers. It is in bloom for several weeks and will grow in sun or light shade.