columbina

The Latin columbina derives from columba, 'dove' or 'pigeon.' Medieval herbalists named the flower (genus Aquilegia) for the shape of its spurred petals, which, when turned upside down, look like a circle of doves with their heads bent toward water. It is one of the more poetic acts of botanical naming — requiring you to flip the flower and use your imagination.

The genus name Aquilegia tells a different story. It likely comes from Latin aquila, 'eagle,' because the curved spurs also resemble eagle talons. So the same flower was simultaneously named for doves and eagles, gentleness and ferocity. Linnaeus kept both names in 1753: Aquilegia for the genus, columbine for the common name. The eagle and the dove share a flower.

In medieval Christian art, columbine represented the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit — one gift for each bloom on the stem as artists typically painted it. The dove association made this connection natural. In Shakespeare's time, the flower took on a less sacred meaning. Ophelia offers columbines in her mad scene in Hamlet (Act IV, Scene 5), likely symbolizing foolishness or unfaithfulness. The dove's innocence had curdled.

Columbine remains a common garden flower across the Northern Hemisphere. The wild species Aquilegia vulgaris grows throughout Europe; Aquilegia caerulea is the state flower of Colorado. The name has accumulated darker associations in American memory since 1999, but the flower itself persists — delicate, spurred, and still looking like doves if you turn it the right way.