The “true” Forget-Me-Not is a European import that makes itself at home along brooks and streams; these grew by a little tributary of the Pine Creek near Wexford. Though Forget-Me-Nots are famously blue, we often see pink ones as well. On these particular plants, the newer flowers are pink, fading to blue as they age.

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. scorpiodes. (TRUE F.) Perennial; stems ascending from an oblique creeping base, 3-7 dm. high, loosely branched, smoothish; leaves  rough-pubescent, oblong-lanceolate or linear-oblong; calyx-lobes much shorter than its tube; limb of corolla 5-8 mm. broad, sky-blue, with a yellow eye. (M. palustris Hill.) In wet ground, Nfd. to w. N. Y., and southw. May-Sept. (Nat. from Eu.)

Normally found near streams, but this plant was happy by a city sidewalk in Beechview, on the shady north side of a house near the exit of a drainpipe. Here we see it much enlarged; for a sense of scale, note the chain-link fence in the background.

Although Gray’s ambiguous note “(Eu.)” might seem to mean that the species comes from Europe, it seems rather to be a native species that also occurs in Europe.

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.)

A rough and hairy plant whose deep blue flowers stand out in a field or roadside meadow. Occasionally new flowers are pink fading to purple, as we see here. This specimen grew by a disused railroad siding in Oakmont.

From Gray’s Manual of Botany: E. VULGARE L. (BLUE-WEED, BLUE DEVIL.) Rough-bristly biennial; stem erect, 3-9 dm. high; stem-leaves linear-lanceolate, sessile; flowers showy, in short lateral clusters, disposed in a long and narrow thyrse or in an open panicle; buds pink; corolla brilliant blue (rarely pale or roseate). Roadsides and meadows, locally abundant. June-Sept. (Nat. from Eu.)

The distinctive arch of the stem marks this as a member of the borage or forget-me-not family. Virginia bluebells bloom in late April and early May in open woodlands and shady moist areas; these grew near the Trillium Trail in Fox Chapel.