Blue Flowers of Spring

Hernando County's Blue Flowers of Spring.

Spiderwort: by Sue Blakeman

    Spiderwort (Tradescantia ohiensis) is now blooming in abundance in the morning hours, although it can and does bloom all year.  Its distribution occurs throughout the state.  Its habitat tends to be moist roadsides and meadows, but it is also found in city lawns and can even be found along railroad tracks.  The plant is perennial, rhizomatous, with leaves that are linear or lanceolate, smooth, and folded lengthwise.  The blue-violet flowers each have 3 symmetrical petals and are in clusters, which may droop, on top of the plants.

Blue-eyed grass: by Sue Blakeman

    Blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium atlanticum) is in the iris (Iridaceae) family.  There are 6 or 7 species found in Florida.  The atlanticum flowers are bluish-purple with a y ellow center and have 6 petals and 3 stamens.  They are perennial and often grow in clumps that resumble grass when not flowering.  The leaves are 2-4 mm wide and can reach up to 50 cm in height, although in mowed areas along roadsides or in lawns they tend to be low-growing, with a spreading habit.  Blue-eyed grass prefers wet flatwoods, marshess, and other wet areas, including roadsides, however, some species may be found in pastures, disturbed areas, city lawns, and even scrub.  There is a non-native species, Sisyrinchium rosulatum, which is native to South America.  It is easy to distinquish from atlanticum by the flowers.  The rosulatum flowers are whitish to pale blue-purple, with a yellow eye-ring circled with rose-purple.  atlanticum flowers are much darker with no ring around their yellow center.

Lyre-leaf Sage: by Sue Blakeman

    Lyre-leaf Sage, or as some books list it, Lyre-leaved Sage (Salvia lyrata), is in the mint (Lamiaceae) family.  It is found throughout the stat along roadsides and also in thickets, wooded areas, disturbed sites, and lawns.  The plant has a square, hairy stem (as do many mints), and it flowers all year, although most profusely in the spring.  The leaves are mostly in basal rosettes (on the ground, radiating around the center) and may have purple mixed with green.  The basal leaves tend to be broad and the margins may be either entire, toothed, or lobed.  The few stem leaves are opposite and small.  The upper lip of the tubular flower is 3-lobed, while the lower lip is 2-lobed.  The 2-liipped corolla is violet, and the 2-lipped calyx is bluish-purple and hairy.  The flowers rise in whorls upon the stem.

Wild Petunia: by Sue Blakeman

        Wild Petunia (Ruellia caroliniensis) and Blue Twinflower (Dyschoriste oblongifolia) are somewhat similar in appearance.  The flowers of both are are funnel-shaped, with 5 lobes and are bluish to purple.  Both bloom spring, summer, and fall throughout the state.  One noticeable distinction in the flowers is that Twin-flowers have dark dots or streaks; Wild Petunia flowers are solid pale purple or blue (rarely white).  The leaves of each are opposite and entire (margins are not toothed) or nearly so.  There is a distinct difference in the leaves:  Wild Petunia leaves are stalked; Twinflower's leaves are sessile (lack a stem, attaching directly to the stalk).  Consult one of the guides listed for other more subtle differences.

Sky-blue lupine: by Miki Renner

Lupinus diffusus (Sky-blue lupine) is a perennial wildflower with (as the name implies) sky-blue colored flowers.  The showy spikes of blue or violet (rarely pink or white) carry large pea-shaped blooms in early spring.  The leaves are ovate to elliptic with silky hairs.  It is found in sandhills, pine flatwoods, and pine and oak scrub.  This plant is occasionally seen on disturbed sandy slopes, such as along roads, where nothing else is growing.  It is a shrubby perennial in the Fabaceae or pea family.  The leaves are clustered at the bottom of the plant when in flower and are fuzzy-feeling.  Each plant may produce numerous tall racemes of flowers.

    Lupine can be grown for its display of blue sweet pea shaped flowers on tall spikes in spring.  It can be a cottage garden addition but is eye catching when planted in large masses such as a ground cover or massing at an entranceway.  Lupine grows in full sun with average moisture.  Other then requiring good drainage, lupine is not fussy about soil.  However, it must be direct seeded.  If available, use some of the soil from around the mother plants in the seed bed to insure the presence of the specific nitrogen-fixing bacteria which are associated with roots of the Lupine.

    But be careful - the pea-like seeds have been wrongly recommended by some as a possible substitute for peas, but don't eat the, they contain a poisonous alkaloid and should be avoided.

Blue Violets: by Sid Taylor

    Dr Wunderlin has 26 Viola listed in his Vascular Plants of FLorida, 18 of which are synonyms.  Narrowing this list for the color blue and Hernando and Citrus Counties leaves four to be discussed here.  Shirley Petty is my personal authority on violets, and I am using her local plant lists.  Walter Kingsley Taylor is the reference which aides in descriptions (see below).

    Viola sororia  (syn: V. flridana, V. palmata var. sororia and V. affinis) is the Common Blue Violet.  This violet has 5 floral parts.  Flowers are solitary, stalked, spurred, and petal bearded.  Basal leaves are smooth, triangle shaped, and shallowly toothed.  Habitat preference is damp and it flowers winter ans spring, throughout Fllorida.

    Viola palmata (syn: V. palmata var. triloba, V. septemloba, and V. esculenta) is the Early Blue Violet.  Flower is the same as above.  Basal leaves are dissected into several lobes.  First leaf is simple and entire.  This plant prefers the damp pinelands of Central and North Florida, and blooms winter and spring.

    Viola villosa is rare, occurring in the north peninsula south to Hernando County, and in Hamilton County.  Common names are Carolina Violet and Southern Downy Violet.  Leaf blades are heart shaped to reniform (kidney-shaped), and densely pubescent with strigose trichomes (sharp, straight, appressed hairs) all pointing in the same direction.

    Viola walterii is Walter's Violet or Prostrate Blue Violet.  It occurs in Citrus, but not Hernando County, and the panhandle of Florida.  Flowers are 2-lipped blue, streaked with purple.  Leaves are ovate, green with purple veins above and entirely purple below.  It is a violet of upland mixed-forests and bluffs.

    Violets have two types of flowers.  The early, showy floral bouquet is to attract pollinators and thus insure out-crossing (sharing of genetics).  These conspicuous flowers have insect landing-pads formed by interior petals, often spurred and containing nectar.

    Later there are cleistogamous flowers which produce seeds that are genetic clones of the parent plant.  Enjoy the former floral jewels now.  Soon they will exit with hot weather.

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