Current native
16
exact source areas
Home / Plants / Grow / Columbian monkshood
Columbian monkshood
Aconitum columbianum
Your local evidence lens
Separate evidence questions, never one approval badge
A genus split is not a placement verdict. Set a ZIP to read the local documented split.
1. Fire evidence and conditions
- Fire evidence
- Mixed evidence — location does not change the cited classification.
- Fire-performance conditions
- No test or rating condition is normalized.
- Fire ecology context
- No section-reviewed fire-ecology context is normalized.
- Placement evidence
- 3 source placement records; source schemes remain separate.
- Evidence regions
- Colorado / Rocky Mountain Front Range; Fremont County, Wyoming; Lake Tahoe Basin, Nevada and California; New Mexico
- Maintenance
- No sourced horticultural maintenance assertion is normalized; fire-test conditions do not supply maintenance advice.
Typed publication scope: 4 scopes across 4 cited fire sources
- Ignition-Resistant Landscape Plants (Fact Sheet 6.305) · Official scoped edition
- Fremont County Firewise Plant List · Official scoped edition
- FireWise Plant List for New Mexico · Official scoped edition
- Home Landscaping Guide for Lake Tahoe and Vicinity (Ed. Bulletin 06-01) · Official scoped edition
2. Why this plant is relevant here
- State distribution
- Documented in AZ, CA, CO, IA, ID, MT, NM, NV, OR, SD, UT, WA, WY.
- Native range
- Current cited native range in AZ, CA, CO, IA, ID, MT, NM, NV, NY, OH, OR, SD, UT, WA, WI, WY.
- Introduced / established
- No introduced or established row is normalized; that does not prove native status.
- USDA hardiness
- Documented minimum 4a; no upper limit is documented.
3. Legal, ecological, and broader status
- Legal-list status
- Set a location for an exact legal-list result; source silence is not clearance.
- Seed-list status
- Set a location to compare the separate state noxious-weed seed layer.
- Reported invasive here
- No ecological invasive report is normalized; that does not prove noninvasiveness.
- Broader regional context
- Aggregate AK, HI, and L48 evidence is shown only as regional context, never as an exact-state finding.
- Federal context
- Federal designations remain separate from state legal-list results.
How to read this page
The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.
- Form
- perennial
- USDA hardiness
- Minimum 4a; upper limit not documented
- Mature height
- ~5 ft
- Water need
- high
- Current cited native range
- AZ, CA, CO, IA, ID, MT, NM, NV, NY, OH, OR, SD, UT, WA, WI, WY
- Grows in
- AZ, CA, CO, IA, ID, MT, NM, NV +5
- Rated in
- Colorado / Rocky Mountain Front Range; Fremont County, Wyoming; Lake Tahoe Basin, Nevada and California; New Mexico
- Family
- Ranunculaceae
- Evidence
- 4 cited sources
Native and introduced range evidence
These are exact U.S. botanical-area records from the cited range source. Native and introduced describe biogeographic relationship, not fire performance or planting approval. Doubtful and extinct rows stay visible but do not count as current presence.
Current introduced
0
exact source areas
Qualified
0
doubtful or extinct source rows
16 native source areas
- Arizona (AZ)
- California (CA)
- Colorado (CO)
- Iowa (IA)
- Idaho (ID)
- Montana (MT)
- New Mexico (NM)
- Nevada (NV)
- New York (NY)
- Ohio (OH)
- Oregon (OR)
- South Dakota (SD)
- Utah (UT)
- Washington (WA)
- Wisconsin (WI)
- Wyoming (WY)
Plant hardiness evidence
-
USDA PLANTS Database — Plant Characteristics
Minimum 4a · no upper limit documented
Where its sources say to plant it
- Ignition-Resistant Landscape Plants: below the source's score-8 threshold for zones 1-2
- Home Landscaping Guide for Lake Tahoe and Vicinity: Fire Hazard column: low
- FireWise Plant List for New Mexico: PDF page 5, Flowers and Ground Covers, p5-r02
The evidence
Recommends (3)
-
Home Landscaping Guide for Lake Tahoe and Vicinity (Ed. Bulletin 06-01)
“low — Monkshood, Columbian or Venus' chariot — Aconitum columbianum or nepellus”
Table 1's Fire Hazard column prints “low” for this taxon. The guide calls the rating a rough estimate of potential flammability, not a result of scientific trials. Its footnote says plants that turn brown often become high fire hazards and tells readers to mow grasses and forbs when they begin to turn brown.
-
Fremont County Firewise Plant List
“Fremont County Firewise Plant List — Aconitum columbianum — Columbian Monkshood”
Listed in the source's Ground Covers section; the page describes its listed Firewise plants as generally low-growing, low-debris, and relatively moist.
-
FireWise Plant List for New Mexico
“FireWise Plant List for New Mexico”
Listed as Aconitum columbianum (Monkshood) in Flowers and Ground Covers. Printed elevation cells: 4,000 ft=Y, 5,000 ft=Y, 6,000 ft=Y, 7,000 ft=Y, 8,000 ft=Y, 9,000+ ft=Y. Water need: M-H; sun/shade: S; mature height: 2’; approximate bloom: Jun-Jul.
Mid-scale / conditional (1)
-
Ignition-Resistant Landscape Plants (Fact Sheet 6.305)
“ignitability score 7.5 of 10”
CSU 6.305 table lists Aconitum columbianum (Columbian monkshood) with the preserved ignitability score.
