A Columbine Named Bobby Joe

Plant The Piece of Turf with the Columbine by Albrecht Dürer, 1526. Photo: public domain

In November 1990, my best friend Robert Joseph Miller’s life was cut short by AIDS. Just after Christmas that same year, I helped Robert’s mother go through his things. As I cleaned around his desk, I removed a print of Albrecht Dürer’s columbine from the wall. Robert had hung it there years before, like one would hang the picture of a saint or a movie star.

Dürer painted that simple yet detailed picture in 1526. It looks as though he had dug up a shovelful of German meadow and transported it intact to his studio for study. The columbine is nestled in grasses and buttercups. Its flowers rise above the other plants like dark violet birds—ravens—not the doves whose Latin name, columba, give us the word “columbine.”

Left: This seedling bore no resemblance to any other columbine growing in the garden of the author’s client; it’s probably a throw back to Aquilegia vulgaris. Lovely none-the-less. Right: A random seedling of dubious origin appeared in the author...