Discovery time

What appeared to be an unknown to me variety of aquilegia, snapped in the margins of a visit to St. Luke's. Judged to be an aquilegia on the strength of its leaves.

Checking this morning, I find that google does  turn up images very like this one for aquilegia. And wikipedia lists lots of different kinds.

To think that all these years I had only been aware of the one sort. I allowed colours to vary but not shape.

I offer the odd fact that while the Latin name 'aquilegia' comes from Latin for eagle, on account of the flower, seen from above, looking like an eagle's claw, the common name 'columbine' comes from the Latin for dove, on account of the flower, seen from below, of looking like a cluster of doves. Or was the responsible wikipedian getting a bit carried away?

Thinking harder, I think that Shakespeare mentions them from time to time. Checking at reference 1, this probably boils down to just once. There are two, but I am unlikely to have logged that in 'Love's Labour Lost', just that in 'Hamlet', Act IV, Scene 5. But the discovery will add colour to that speech, next time I see it. But did Shakespeare have a clue what a columbine was, or was it just a literary allusion of a sort popular in his day? Or was he just intending to portray a girl making such an illusion, rather than making it himself, in which case it would not matter very much whether he knew or not?

I note in passing that Karen does err in her line reference of 189. My edition of this work has it at line 179. A copy sold by Deighton Bell of Cambridge, one of the three or four outfits licensed to issue prize books for my secondary school in my day. Not that that is how it came to be in my possession - if for no other reason than that this particular book was probably sold in the 20's or 30's of the last century, with Deighton Bell themselves vanishing in the 90's of the same century.

Reference 1: http://www.karensgardentips.com/garden-types-styles-and-designs/shakespeares-flowers-and-gardens/shakespeares-flowers-columbine/.