Aquilegia nigricans cf. Baumg., syn: Aquilegia haenkeana Koch, Aquilegia ullepitschii Pax, Aquilegia vulgaris subsp. nigricans (Baumg.) Domin, Aquilegia vulgaris var. nigricans (Baumg.) SchurFamily: RanunculaceaeEN: Bulgarian columbine, DE: Drsige Akelei Slo: velecvetna orlicaDat.: June 3. 2019 and June 6. 2019Lat.: 46.357076 Long.: 13.701260Code: Bot_1206/2019_DSC07479 and Bot_1208/2019_DSC07589Habitat: grassland, under a canopy of a Salix eleagnos; river bank; locally flat terrain; partly in shade; alluvial, calcareous ground; elevation 530 m; average precipitations about 3.000 mm/year, average temperature 7-9 deg C; alpine phytogeographical region.Substratum: soil.Place: Lower Trenta valley, between villages Soa and Trenta, left bank of river Soa, about 80 m upstream from the bridge to the farmhouse Matev, Trenta 1; East Julian Alps, Posoje, Slovenia EC.Comments: Genus Aquilegia is one of the most beautiful of all known to me. All wild species in Slovenia have quite large and, before all, imagination full shape of the flowers. No wonder, there are many cultivars in use in gardens all over the world. In Slovenia there grow five species. Two of them are endemic: Aquilegia einseleana and Aquilegia iulia. The first one is limited to South-East Alps. The second one had been long time known as Aquilegia bertolonii Schott. & Verh.. It was only recently recognized as a separate species, which is endemic almost exclusively to the territory of Slovenia.Other three, that is Aquilegia vulgaris, Aquilegia nigricans and Aquilegia atrata are all +/- common plants, but frequently quite a hard nut to be properly separated. All of them are more of less of the same height, all of them have similar flowers and they all are very variable in shape and color of their flowers. Often intermediary forms are found and hybrids are also frequent. Ambiguities exist also in the literature. For example: if one looks at the distribution map of Aquilegia nigricans in the Euro+Med Plantbase (Ref.: 6) and in GBIF (the Global Biodiversity Information Facility) (Ref.: 7), one gets two completely different pictures. The firs source claims the species is absent from Austria and Slovenia, the second source claims that far the most observations come from these two countries. Also the information about hairiness of the plants, for example, differ in literature. The plants on my pictures have short but distinctive glandular hairs on their flower petioles. Hence they can't belong to Aquilegia vulgaris (Ref.: 1 and 2), which has no glandular hairs. Other traits point to somewhere in between both remaining alternatives. The color of flowers seems to me closer to 'violet-brown' than to 'deep-blue to violet-blue' (Ref.1) hence Aquilegia atrata; the leaflets of the second order are clearly cuneate (wedge-shaped) at the base - hence Aquilegia nigricans; stamens are protruding way out of the corolla hence Aquilegia atrata; bracts are very narrow (length/width = 3.5 -8.5(12) (Ref.: 1) hence Aquilegia nigricans; the size of the flowers fits somewhere in between both species. Based on quite regularly cuneate leaflets I decided that the plant are closer to Aquilegia nigricans. Ref:(1) M.A. Fischer, W. Adler, K. Oswald, Exkursionsflora fr sterreich, Liechtenstein und Sdtirol, LO Landesmuseen, Linz, Austria (2005), p 267.(2) A. Martini et all., Mala Flora Slovenije (Flora of Slovenia - Key) (in Slovenian), Tehnina Zaloba Slovenije (2007), p 147. (3) D. Aeschimann, K. Lauber, D.M. Moser, J.P. Theurillat, Flora Alpina, Vol. 1., Haupt (2004), p 186.(4) K. Lauber and G. Wagner, Flora Helvetica, 5. Auflage, Haupt (2012), p 142.(5) H. Haeupler, T. Muer, Bildatlas der Farn- und Bluetenpflazen Deutschlands, Ulmer (2000), p 57.(6)
euromed.luomus.fi/euromed_map.php?taxon=347328&size=m... (accessed Jan.28. 2020)(7)
www.gbif.org/species/3930143/metrics (accessed Jan.28. 2020)
