Alternate name: Red Columbine

Family: Ranunculaceae, Buttercup view all from this family

Description A nodding, red and yellow flower with upward spurred petals alternating with spreading, colored sepals and numerous yellow stamens hanging below the petals.
Flowers: 1-2" (2.5-5 cm) long; sepals 5, red; petals 5, the blade yellow and the hollow spur red; stamens forming a column.
Leaves: 4-6" (10-15 cm) wide, compound, long-stalked, divided into 9-27 light green 3-lobed leaflets.
Fruit: beaked, dry pod, splitting open along inner side.
Height: 1-2' (30-60 cm).

Flower April-July.

Habitat Rocky, wooded or open slopes.

Range Ontario to Quebec; south throughout New England to Georgia; west to Tennessee and Wisconsin.

Discussion This beautiful woodland wildflower has showy, drooping, bell-like flowers equipped with distinctly backward-pointing tubes, similar to the garden Columbines. These tubes, or spurs, contain nectar that attracts long-tongued insects especially adapted for reaching the sweet secretion. European Columbine (A. vulgaris), with blue, violet, pink, or white short-spurred flowers, was introduced from Europe and has now become well established in many parts of the East.