As we have mentioned before, this species is in an oddly expansive mood lately. A decade or two ago it was uncommon, but now it is all over city sidewalks and yards. It is a perfect miniature of the common garden Forget-Me-Not—a beautiful flower close up, though likely to be missed on account of its diminutive size. These plants were blooming in Beechview in late May.
For a fuller description, see the Myosotis laxa reference page.
As their name implies, Virginia Bluebells (Mertensia virginica) are most commonly blue. But, like many other blue flowers, they also occur in a range of colors including pink, white, pale blue, and lilac. Every year we return to the bluebell patch along the Trillium Trail in Fox Chapel to find bluebells in the wrong colors.
For a detailed description and many more pictures, see the Mertensia virginica reference page.
Just beginning to bloom April 7 along the Trillium Trail in Fox Chapel. For a full description, see the Mertensia virginica reference page.
Something odd is happening with this species around here. It used to be fairly rare, but over the past few years it seems to have become a common little weed. This is a miniature version of the common Forget-Me-Not (M. scorpioides), very similar except for the size. It’s normally found near streams, but in Pittsburgh it likes the edge of a sidewalk just as well, especially if it’s a moist area like a drainpipe outflow.
Gray describes the genus and the species:
MYOSOTIS [Rupp.] L. SCORPION-GRASS. FORGET-ME-NOT
Corolla-tube about the length of the 6-toothed or 5-cleft calyx, the throat with 5 small and blunt arching appendages opposite the rounded lobes; the latter convolute in the bud! Stamens included, on very short filaments. Nutlets compressed. Low and mostly soft-hairy herbs, with entire leaves, those of the stem sessile, and with small flowers in naked racemes, which are entirely bractless, or occasionally with small leaves next the base, prolonged and straightened in fruit. (Name composed of myos, mouse, and os, ear, from the short and soft leaves in some species.)
M. laxa Lehm. Perennial from filiform subterranean shoots; stems very slender, decumbent; pubescence all appressed; leaves lanceolate-oblong or somewhat spatulate; calyx-lobes as long as the tube; limb of corolla rarely 5 mm. broad, paler blue. In water and wet ground, Nfd. to Ont., and southw. May-Aug. (Eu.)
Every year we go looking for different colors of Virginia Bluebells (Mertensia virginica). We even include some blue ones in this collection.
