Aquilegia pubescens is a perennial flowering plant in the family Ranunculaceae, endemic to the Sierra Nevada in California.

[4] The rootstock is densely covered with the remains of previous years' leaves, and the stems are mostly smooth with sparse hairs towards the top.

[6] Aquilegia pubescens 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.

This produces flowers with intermediate color, spur length, and orientation, as shown in the transition-series image, providing a change also in pollinator species: hawkmoths for A. pubescens and hummingbirds for A.

[8] The specific epithet pubescens means "hairy" in Latin, referring to the densely pubescent leaflets which Frederick Vernon Coville identified as a distinguishing feature in his original species description of the plant.