Flora of North America species comparison

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Aconitum columbianum

Columbia monkshood, Columbian monkshood, monkshood, western monkshood
Roots

tuberous, tuber distally not obviously bulblike, to 60 × 15 mm, parent tuber producing 1 (rarely 2) daughter tubers with connecting rhizome very short, i.e., tubers ±contiguous.
Stems

erect and stout to twining and reclining, 2-30 dm.
Cauline leaves

blade deeply 3-5(-7)-divided, usually with more than 2 mm leaf tissue between deepest sinus and base of blade, 5-15 cm wide, segment margins variously cleft and toothed.
Inflorescences

open racemes or panicles.
Flowers

commonly blue, sometimes white, cream colored, or blue tinged at sepal margins, 18-50 mm from tips of pendent sepals to top of hood;

pendent sepals 6-16 mm;

hood conic-hemispheric, hemispheric, or crescent-shaped, 11-34mm from receptacle to top of hood, 6-26 mm wide from receptacle to beak apex.

Aconitum columbianum
Distribution
from FNA
AZ; CA; CO; IA; ID; MT; NM; NV; NY; OH; OR; SD; UT; WA; WI; WY; BC; Moist areas; primarily in w North America; sporadic in e US
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Subspecies 2 (2 in the flora).

Available information suggests that Aconitum columbianum is probably not one of the extremely toxic aconites (D. E. Brink 1982; J. D. Olsen et al. 1990).

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Key
1. Leaf axils and inflorescence without bulbils
subsp. columbianum
1. Leaf axils and/or inflorescence with conspicuous bulbils
subsp. viviparum
Source FNA vol. 3. Treatment authors: D. E. Brink, J. A. Woods.
Parent taxa Ranunculaceae > Aconitum
Sibling taxa
A. delphiniifolium, A. maximum, A. reclinatum, A. uncinatum
Subordinate taxa
A. columbianum subsp. columbianum, A. columbianum subsp. viviparum
Name authority Nuttall: in J. Torrey & A. Gray, Fl. N. Amer. 1: 34. (1838)
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



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