Aquilegia aurea grows to 10–100cm (4–39in)[3] with smooth or lightly hairy stems and large, nodding, light yellow or greenish-yellow flowers with a hooked nectar spur and protruding stamens.[4] It forms a large underground mass to maintain stability among the loose rocks and scree of its environment.[5]
Taxonomy
Aquilegia aurea belongs to a clade containing most of the European columbine species, which appear to have diverged from their closest relatives in Asia in the early Pleistocene, a little over 2 million years ago.[6]
Aquilegia aurea is native to mountainous regions of western and southwestern Bulgaria, in Vitosha, Rila, Pirin and the western Rhodope Mountains, as well as the Belasica mountains (also known as Kerkini in Greece) in southeastern North Macedonia and northeastern Greece.[1][2] It grows in rocky alpine meadows at altitudes of 1,800–2,300m (5,900–7,500ft).[3]
Ecology
Aquilegia aurea blooms in June and July.[3] It is one of the diagnostic species for the high-altitude Aquilegio aureae-Doronicetum columnaeplant community that occurs in almost all of the main Bulgarian mountain ranges.[5] The leaf miner Phytomyza minuscula is known to attack the leaves, along with the fungus Erysiphe aquilegiae var. aquilegiae, which causes powdery mildew, and the smut fungusUrocystis aquilegiae, which creates pustules on the leaves.[8]
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