Not-So-Wild Columbine

Aquilegia canadensis (wild columbine): it takes me back to my undergraduate thesis days of tromping through the woods all over Williamston, MA and surveying the plants.  Whenever I ran across columbine, it would be clustered around limestone outcroppings (high pH!).  Today, on the other hand, I found it next to the MIT athletic complex.

Horse-chestnut inflorescence

Eight-inch-tall flower on a horse-chestnut tree next to the river on Memorial Drive.  The flower is andromonoeceous: it has male flowerlets (with just stamens) and hermaphroditic flowerlets (with stamens and pistil).  If only I hadn't made it so blurry you would be able to see that for yourself.

At the chocolate shop