I don't know if you can see them very well, put here and there all the way up that slope are wild columbines. They don't have the familiar white center, and that variety also grows in the wilds of Colorado, but what I call the wild columbine has the same foliage as the others.



Columbines are special to us because it's our state flower, and the state song is "Where the Columbines Grow" but nobody knows what it sounds like. It was adopted by the state in 1915, which tells you something.

The bison is gone from the upland,
the deer from the canyon has fled,
The home of the wolf is deserted,
the antelope moans for his dead,
The war whoop re-echoes no longer,
the Indian's only a name,
And the nymphs of the grove in their loneliness rove,
but the columbine blooms just the same.

Chorus:
Tis the land where the columbines grow,
Overlooking the plains far below,
While the cool summer breeze in the evergreen trees
Softly sings where the columbines grow.

The lyrics are actually pretty and wistful.