I can think of a few options from the description of the blossom as clover-like or gomphrena'ish though none of them have particularly astilbe-like foliage ;

There's a gold-leafed Persicaria polymorpha here in the first photo, but they also come with non-gold foliage. I guess a bit too long, though.

Knautia macedonica is another possibility.

Polygonum bistorta

Astrantia major

Scabiosa

A few more:

Centranthus ruber, red valerian

Armeria

Monarda

Indigofera

Bingo! Astrantia it is. I recognized the name as soon as I read your first post. Thank you so very much, NHBabs.

I'm very embarrassed to say that I started a thread on this two years ago which got a lot of good replies about various cultivars. I tried to find it yesterday by searching my own name but no luck.

I recall now that I didn't go ahead and order any because it seems the color descriptions vary by website. I can't find it in local nurseries to see for myself. Guess I'll have to gamble tho they are not cheap.

Thank you again, NHBabs. Really great job from such a skimpy description.

Nerd that I am, I find your type of puzzle fun, an excuse to rummage through mental files, sometimes of plants I've never grown, to see what might fit.

There was a recent thread on Astrantia on the perennials forum, probably what brought it to mind. It's a plant I will have to try at some point but I've never seen in person.

High five for Babs, and thanks Ginny lol..now I want one too!
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Nerds are good! And I wish we had the variety of plants in local nurseries that they have in England. When I was Googling Astrantia, there were so many choices--in England. And, not to be gloomy, but we don't even have the selection here that we used to with the closure of so many nurseries, such as Newbury Perennial Gardens, Leo Blanchette etc.

Ontheteam, if you saw the Astrantias I saw in that woman's garden a few years ago, you'd REALLY want one. It's not a peony or delphinium but an attractive and unusual perennial that played well with others, as far as I could see.

ginny, where are you located?
Some nurseries near my area (Providence) do carry quite a variety of plants or will order for you, however I have to agree that compared to English nurseries, we have very little in most garden centers here. When I was in England, the variety of garden plants was amazing. I know that it was partly due to the milder climate there, and probably due to the fact that people there are generally much more interested in their gardens than we are here in the US. But despite those reasons, they still seemed to have just so much more available, and I'm speaking of things that would survive our climate as well. Rhododendrons are a good example. We can probably find a dozen varieties at a GOOD local nursery, maybe twice that online, but over the pond in England they have dozens and dozens available. One nursery I visited had to have at least 200 kinds! I've been looking for Rosocea "Red Gurkha" for a few years. Nowhere in the US sells it, but several sources are in the UK. Unfortunately, none of them can ship to me here for agricultural reasons.

Thanks, Bill. I am north of Boston so Providence is out of my shopping range, alas.

I was on a garden tour in England a few years ago and they took us to a nursery. What torture. What could the tour leader have been thinking of? Talk about plant lust and unable to buy a thing!

Ginny, exactly how I felt in England. I was able to buy some bulbs of Allium at the Chelsea Flower Show because the vendor was prepared with proper phytosanitary certificates for shipping later that year. But I wonder why we don't have the same variety here in the states? The same was true every time I've gone to Italy. I see plant varieties that I've never seen here, but again I'm not allowed to bring them back. And in the Netherlands, it was similar. So many things available in Europe that just aren't here.