878 Aquilegia vulgaris L.

This rather polymorphic species seems to originate from C. and partly S. Europe. Being a garden plant, it has often escaped and become naturalized far beyond its original distribution area. It is not clear whether the populations in Asia and China (not marked here) belong to A. vulgaris s. str. or to the closely related A. oxysepala Trautv. & Mey. A. vulgaris has been introduced into N. America and New Zealand. Together with closely related species, sometimes considered as subspecies or varieties, it forms a circumpolar complex. Cf. also Meusel et al. 1965, map p. 155.