Sunday, November 21, 2010

Blue's Clues

Continuing our exploration of the weeds in My Florida Backyard's little scrap of lawn, we discovered two lovely little blue flowers. One of these we were able to find in our Wildflowers of Florida Field Guide, but the other is another mystery that we're hoping our readers might be able to help out with.

Here's the one we know: Commelina diffusa, also known as Climbing Dayflower or Creeping Dayflower. As you might guess, the blooms on this non-native wildflower bloom for only one day. It grows along the ground, rooting at the stem nodes and often forming mats, causing it to be difficult to uproot once it's started. In its native Asia, it's grown as an herb and used as a diuretic and fever-reducer. Here in the U.S., it's generally just considered a weed in cultivated lawns, but since our lawn is really just the few scraps of grass we haven't turned into gardens (yet), we don't mind this little invader, whose blooms are delicate and lovely up-close.


Our other little blue bloom is somewhat similar, but we can't find it in our book or online. Any thoughts on this new mystery wildflower in My Florida Backyard?

2 comments:

  1. We have the creeping dayflower too and I've loved this little bloomer for years. As to your mystery flower, I don't know what it is, but wouldn't mind having it either.

    Enjoy your blues.

    FlowerLady

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