Aerial stems viny, climbing or trailing, 0.5-1.5(-3.5) m. Leaf blade 2-3-ternate; leaflets mostly lanceolate to ovate, few-lobed, lobes often over 5 mm wide, thin, margins serrate. Flowers: sepals violet-blue, rarely white, 2.5-6 cm. Flowering spring-early summer(-fall). Rocky, open woods and thickets; 1700-3200 m; Ariz., Colo., Idaho, Mont., N.Mex., Tex., Utah, Wyo. Clematis columbiana var. columbiana flowers in early summer at high elevations and occasionally flowers in fall on new growth. The taxon was erroneously included in C. alpina Linnaeus by D.S. Correll and M.C. Johnston (1970).