Schoolchildren voted the Rocky Mountain Columbine as the state flower for Colorado in 1899. Edwin James first discovered it on Pike’s Peak, (America’s Mountain) in 1820. Columbines bloom in pastel shades of blue, violet, red, yellow, and white. There are 70 species of columbines in the Great Wide World and Colorado specifies the white and lavender Rocky Mt. Columbine as the state flower. It has blue-violet petals and spurs, a white cup, and a yellow center. Blue symbolizes the sky, white represents snow, and the yellow is for Colorado’s gold mining history.
We have a few Columbines growing around our cottage. They’ve been here since before we moved in, and show up anew every spring. They’re truly amazing flowers that look predatory with their long talon-like spurs. The Official State song also honors these amazing wildflowers: “Where The Columbines Grow,” written by A.J. Flynn in 1908.
Where the snowy peaks gleam in the moonlight,
Above the dark forests of pine,
And the wild foaming waters dash onward,
Toward lands where the tropic stars shine;
Where the scream of the bold mountain eagle
Responds to the notes of the dove
Is the purple robed West, the land that is best,
The pioneer land that we love.
Tis the land where the columbines grow,
Overlooking the plains far below,
While the cool summer breeze in the evergreen trees
Softly sings where the columbines grow.
The bison is gone from the upland,
The deer from the canyon has fled,
The home of the wolf is deserted,
The antelope moans for his dead,
The war whoop re-echoes no longer,
The Indian's only a name,
And the nymphs of the grove in their loneliness rove,
But the columbine blooms just the same.
Let the violet brighten the brookside,
In sunlight of earlier spring,
Let the fair clover bedeck the green meadow,
In days when the orioles sing,
Let the golden rod herald the autumn,
But, under the midsummer sky,
In its fair Western home, may the columbine bloom
Till our great mountain rivers run dry.
Colorado also adopted John Denver’s “Rocky Mountain High” as State song #2 in 2007.
Here are a few macro images of our local Columbines…