Now Blooming: Blue-eyed Grass


This is not a peregrine.  😉

Today I’m taking a break from peregrines to look at flowers and other birds.  I won’t be holding Fledge Watch at Pitt but John English and Sharon Leadbitter will be downtown at two sites watching the peregrines at Gulf.  Click on their names for time and location.

Here’s a flower I found blooming at Moraine State Park last weekend. 

Blue-eyed Grass is in the Iris family, the Sisyrinchium genus.  There are at least five species — Stout, Eastern, White, Slender and Common Blue-eyed Grass — but they are similar and I didn’t have a field guide with me so I don’t know which one I saw.

I like the name though.  I take it apart to make sense of it.  The flower is “Blue,” it has a yellow “eye,” and the leaves look like “grass.”

The flower is 0.5-0.75″ wide. The stem is 12-18″ tall.

You’ll find it blooming in May and June in moist meadows, marshes and at the edges of woods.

(photo from Wikimedia Commons. Click on the photo to see the original)

4 thoughts on “Now Blooming: Blue-eyed Grass

  1. Enjoy the flowers. Looking down for a change, eh? 🙂
    And thanks for the GT plug! Bought a beter tripod this a.m. so it’s easier for other folks to view.

    John

  2. Carol, THANK YOU for pointing out my typo! I have fixed it. Yes, this plant is in the Iris family. I was thinking of one 4-letter flower and typed another. Yoy!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *