Aquilegia canadensisL.

red columbine

WFO wfo-0000541210 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Aquilegia canadensis, photographed by Brian Finzel
fig. a Brian Finzel, CC BY-SA 4.0 / 2022-06-12 / obs. 205647757
Aquilegia canadensis, photographed by Carol Ann Vermeer
fig. b Carol Ann Vermeer, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205438695
Aquilegia canadensis, photographed by Kerry Williams
fig. c Kerry Williams, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205219172
Aquilegia canadensis, photographed by A.L.
fig. d A.L., CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204453848
Aquilegia canadensis, photographed by Craig K
fig. e Craig K, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204503985
Aquilegia canadensis, photographed by florawhite
fig. f florawhite, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203568369
Aquilegia canadensis, photographed by Quinten Wiegersma
fig. g Quinten Wiegersma, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205336053
Aquilegia canadensis, photographed by Craig Martin
fig. h Craig Martin, CC0 1.0 / obs. 203348293

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Flowering n = 17,796 observations

Peak flowering in May, from 17,796 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 27 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Aquilegia australis Small
  • Aquilegia canadensis f. albiflora House
  • Aquilegia canadensis f. ecalcarata R.B.Livingston
  • Aquilegia canadensis f. flaviflora (Tenney) Britton ex House
  • Aquilegia canadensis f. flaviflora Britton
  • Aquilegia canadensis f. gartneri Rapaics
  • Aquilegia canadensis f. phippenii (J.Rob.) Ralph Hoffm.
  • Aquilegia canadensis subsp. americana Rapaics
  • Aquilegia canadensis var. aurea Orpet
  • Aquilegia canadensis var. australis (Small) Munz
  • Aquilegia canadensis var. canadensis
  • Aquilegia canadensis var. coccinea (Small) Munz
  • Aquilegia canadensis var. eminens (Greene) B.Boivin
  • Aquilegia canadensis var. flaviflora Britton
  • Aquilegia canadensis var. hybrida Hook.
  • Aquilegia canadensis var. latiuscula (Greene) Munz
  • Aquilegia canadensis var. longistyla Regel
  • Aquilegia canadensis var. phippenii J.Rob.
  • Aquilegia canadensis var. vera Brühl
  • Aquilegia canadensis var. violacea Nutt. ex Torr. & A.Gray
  • Aquilegia coccinea Small
  • Aquilegia elegans Salisb.
  • Aquilegia eminens Greene
  • Aquilegia flaviflora Tenney

and 3 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice, no toxicity claim and no native range, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.