Aquilegia elegantula, the western red columbine, is a perennial species of flowering plant in the family Ranunculaceae, native to the Southwestern United States and northern Mexico.

The green leaf blades are borne on long, slender petioles and divided into three leaflets which each have rounded lobes along the front edges.

The flower has five long petals up to 3 cm (1.2 in) in length including their elongated, knob-tipped spurs.

[3] The species is probably most closely related to Aquilegia coerulea and is part of a clade containing all the North American species of columbines that likely split from their closest relatives in East Asia in the mid-Pliocene, approximately 3.84 million years ago.

[5] It grows in moist Douglas fir and spruce–fir forests and on river banks at altitudes of 1,700–2,800 m (5,600–9,200 ft).