Aquilegia fragrans
| Aquilegia fragrans | |
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| Flower of Aquilegia fragrans at the Giardino Botanico Alpino Chanousia | |
Scientific classification 
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| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| Clade: | Tracheophytes |
| Clade: | Angiosperms |
| Clade: | Eudicots |
| Order: | Ranunculales |
| Family: | Ranunculaceae |
| Genus: | Aquilegia |
| Species: | A. fragrans
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| Binomial name | |
| Aquilegia fragrans | |
| Synonyms[2] | |
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List
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Aquilegia fragrans, the fragrant columbine or sweet-scented columbine, is a perennial species of flowering plant in the family Ranunculaceae, native to the Western Himalayas.[2]
Description
[edit]Aquilegia fragrans grows to 30–80 cm (12–31 in) in height. The rootstock is slender with the upper part covered by previous years' leaf-stalks. The stems are branched and densely hairy with glands below the flowers. The basal leaves are biternate with long hairy stalks. Its leaflets are wedge- or teardrop-shaped, paler and hairy beneath, green and usually hairless above, with two or three lobes. The flowers are horizontal or slightly nodding with whitish or pale purple sepals measuring 20–30 mm (0.79–1.18 in) in length. The petals are usually paler than the sepals and 15–18 mm (0.59–0.71 in) long, with straight or slightly curved nectar spurs measuring 15–18 mm (0.59–0.71 in).[3]
Taxonomy
[edit]The species is part of a clade containing several Western, Southern and Central Asian species of columbine, that likely split from their closest relatives in Eurasia in the mid-Pliocene, approximately 3.37 million years ago.[4]
Etymology
[edit]The specific epithet fragrans means "fragrant" in Latin.
Distribution and habitat
[edit]This species is native to subalpine meadows in the Western Himalayas at altitudes of 2,400–3,600 m (7,900–11,800 ft). It is present in the Kunar, Nuristan, Laghman, Nangarhar, and Parwan provinces of Afghanistan, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Kashmir regions of Pakistan, and the Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, and Uttarakhand states and Jammu and Kashmir union territory of India.[5]
Ecology
[edit]Aquilegia fragrans flowers from June to August.[3]
Conservation
[edit]The species has not been assessed for the IUCN Red List.[1]
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Plant of Aquilegia fragrans -
Leaves
References
[edit]- ^ a b "Aquilegia - genus". IUCN Red List. 2024. Retrieved 10 November 2024.
- ^ a b "Aquilegia fragrans Benth". Plants of the World Online. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Retrieved 10 November 2024.
- ^ a b "Fragrant Columbine". Flowers of India. Retrieved 10 November 2024.
- ^ Fior, Simone; Li, Mingai; Oxelman, Bengt; Viola, Roberto; Hodges, Scott A.; Ometto, Lino; Varotto, Claudio (2013). "Spatiotemporal reconstruction of the Aquilegia rapid radiation through next-generation sequencing of rapidly evolving cpDNA regions". New Phytologist. 198 (2): 579–592. doi:10.1111/nph.12163. PMID 23379348.
- ^ "Aquilegia fragrans Benth". Catalogue of Life. Species 2000: Leiden, the Netherlands. Retrieved 10 November 2024.