- Source: Aquilegia nigricans
Aquilegia nigricans, the Bulgarian columbine, is a perennial species of flowering plant in the family Ranunculaceae, native to central and southeastern Europe.
Description
Aquilegia nigricans has nodding, dark brownish-purple flowers, dark purple stems covered with downy hair, and biternate basal leaves.
Taxonomy
= Etymology
=The specific epithet nigricans means "blackish" or "swarthy" in Latin, referring to the colour of the flowers.
Distribution and habitat
Aquilegia nigricans is native to several non-contiguous, mainly mountainous areas in the eastern Alps, the Carpathian Mountains, and the southern and eastern Balkans. It is found in Slovenia, Austria, Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Romania, and Greece, and in small areas of southeastern Poland, eastern Slovakia, northwestern Croatia, eastern Bosnia and Herzegovina, western Hungary, Serbia, and western Ukraine. Reports of specimens in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of northeastern Italy are thought to have been erroneous.
Conservation
As of November 2024, Aquilegia nigricans was listed as Data deficient (DD) by the IUCN Red List. This status was last assessed on 27 March 2014.