Aquilegia canadensis: flowers and seed pods

Aquilegia canadensis (known in English as wild columbine, red columbine, or Canada columbine and in French as ancolie du Canada or gants de Notre-Dame is a short-lived herbaceous perennial native to southeastern Canada and northeastern United States. Like most columbines, its flowers have five long spurs. This is my favourite wildflower, in part because it is one of the few red flowers found in the Canadian wilderness.

I photographed this pretty clump of wild columbine at Toronto Botanical Garden in late June. Columbine blooms in the spring so I was pleasantly surprised to see there were still some blooms left, as well as the brown seedpods.