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Thursday, March 11, 2010

Mystery Flower

Well it's a thoroughly unpleasant day out there this morning so there's no way I'm going out. However, it's an ill wind...I'll do my taxes, which I've been putting off as long as the sun was shining. As for this lovely little blue flower, I don't know what it is. A fairly large patch of it was blooming near the top of Highrock Park last week. A passing local said she thought it was not a native species but had been planted by someone or escaped from a garden. I can't find it in any of my local plant field guides so I suspect she's right. If you know what it is please leave a comment.

Ah, the internet is wonderful. Thanks to visitor Old Stone I think we can safely identify this flower as an immigrant from Turkey called Glory of the Snow (Chionodoxa forbesii). Thank you Old Stone, I always like to know what things are called.

4 comments:

JoJo said...

Beautiful flower! I'm not good w/ botany, so no idea what it is but the colour is magnificent!!

Unknown said...

I asked my friend who worked at Mt Rainer so knows a little about the nearby area.... she said, "The closest thing I can find is the Piper's Bellflower (harebell family) which is supposedly endemic (only found in) the alpine Olympics. Maybe it's a nearby relative of that one. Just a guess. It's not showing up in my native plants books either. There aren't many native blue-colored flowers. My guess is that it's something in the harebell family -- but I'm no botanist. I could be completely off-base.
Karen"
:) Hope that helps!

Old Stone said...

This may be a spring bulb that I know as "glory of the snow". It is closely related to the scilla, and is a member of the lily (Liliaceae) family. I have them blooming in my garden now (just across the water in Metro Van)

Benjamin Madison said...

Thanks Bethany but I'm pretty sure Old Stone has got the right id on this lovely little flower: it's called "Glory of the Snow" and is originally from Turkey so it seems it is probably an escape that has naturalized itself.