Reaching For A Star

by Connie Handscomb

Title

Reaching For A Star

Artist

Connie Handscomb

Medium

Photograph - Photography - Fine Art

Description

There is nothing impossible to him that will try.
~ Alexander The Great

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Blue Columbine : Granny's bonnets
(Aquilegia vulgaris; Aquilegia caerulea; Aquilegia canandensis;Aguilega formosa)

Family = Ranunculaceae (Buttercup)

This perennial wildflower often seen throughout Europe, in the Rocky Mountains, in moist woodlands, and in Canada. It is the state flower of Colorado. If you like hummingbirds, you will be popular with them if you have this in your garden. Colours range from violets and blues, maroons, to pinks and, occasionally, white.

Although it is poisonous, it has medicinal qualities:- the leaves were used in lotions for sore mouths and throats; the Spaniards ate pieces of the root in the mornings to deal with kidney stones; the indigenous Americans used minute amounts of its crushed seeds for headaches, and fevers (the seeds were also rubbed into hair to control lice) and also chewed the root for stomach ailments.

Native Americans also ate the sweet flowers as a condiment with greens but were careful not to eat the seeds or roots which are highly poisonous.

Symbolically, it has several meanings. Since the flower resembles a jester's cap, it means Folly. The spurs on the flower were said to look like the Virgin Mary's shoes, and the flowers would spring up where she walked, thus: innocence. The Purple Columbine means a determination to win. In Shakespeare's Hamlet, Ophelia presents the flower to mean faithlessness.

Aquilegia fr. Latin 'aquilia' = Eagle (its appendages look like talons)
Columbine fr. Latin columba = dove or pigeon (the Romans thought it looked like birds scattering upwards)

Sources:
The Romantic Language Of Flowers
Wildflowers [R.Imes]
The Wild Flowers Book [E. Tomanova]
Culpeper's Color Herbal [Ed. D. Potterton]
The Carefree Garden, Letting Nature Play Her Part [Bill Terry]
Peterson Field Guide: Medicinal Plants and Herbs, E. and Central N. Amer [Foster;Duke]

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While we were traveling, my columbines disappeared never to be seen again. Every now and again, a treasure disappears but it doesn't matter - the garden centre is a favorite haunt, and there are penultimate choices for me there.

Captured in natural light; unedited .... cropped to a square format, as I was not entirely pleased with the background on this one.

Nature in all her glory :)

Uploaded

March 31st, 2017

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