Sampling
Seeds of Aquilegia viridiflora were collected from 20 locations covering its current distribution range, and all voucher specimens were identified by Dr Hongxing Xiao and deposited in the Northeast Normal University Herbaria (Figure 1; Table S1). Each of the maternal plants was separated from the others by > 50 m. Furthermore, to determine whether the A. viridiflora materials collected shared the most recent common ancestor (MRCA), we also collected A. amurensis , A. ecalcarata , A. japonica , A. oxysepala var. kansuensis , A. oxysepala var.oxysepala , and A. yabeana seeds, as reported in our previous study (W. Zhang, Wang, Dong, Zhang, & Xiao, 2021). Additionally, seeds of Paraquilegia microphylla were collected as an outgroup. All the seeds were grown in the experimental field of Northeast Normal University. Fresh leaves and buds were used to extract DNA and RNA, respectively. These materials were quickly frozen in liquid nitrogen and stored at -80 ℃.