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From May to July, ‘granny’s bonnet’ hangs its nodding flowers from slender stems, each one shaped like an old-fashioned bonnet. Behind every petal is a long, hooked spur holding nectar at its tip, reachable only by long-tongued bumblebees. Shorter-tongued bees sometimes cheat, biting through the spur to steal the nectar.
Its other names come from the shape of the flower. “Columbine” comes from the Latin for dove, as the petals and spurs were said to look like a cluster of doves drinking, while Aquilegia is thought to come from the Latin for eagle, from the claw-like curve of the spurs.
Columbine is a native plant of damp woods and limestone grassland, but it has long been a favourite in cottage gardens, and many of the plants found growing wild today are garden escapes. On former colliery land, it often appears near old pit villages, perhaps spreading from gardens or dumped garden waste.
From May to July, ‘granny’s bonnet’ hangs its nodding flowers from slender stems, each one shaped like an old-fashioned bonnet. Behind every petal is a long, hooked spur holding nectar at its tip, reachable only by long-tongued bumblebees. Shorter-tongued bees sometimes cheat, biting through the spur to steal the nectar.
Its other names come from the shape of the flower. “Columbine” comes from the Latin for dove, as the petals and spurs were said to look like a cluster of doves drinking, while Aquilegia is thought to come from the Latin for eagle, from the claw-like curve of the spurs.
Columbine is a native plant of damp woods and limestone grassland, but it has long been a favourite in cottage gardens, and many of the plants found growing wild today are garden escapes. On former colliery land, it often appears near old pit villages, perhaps spreading from gardens or dumped garden waste.