Wildflowers!
by Jane Scully
Virginia Bluebells or Virginia Cowslip
(Mertensia virginica)
Sometimes with flowers, the old adage, "A picture is worth 1,000 words," is so true that it's an understatement. "Well, it's a blue flower...a nodding blue flower...."
Just look at this beauty. Not only is it magnificent on its own, but growing as a carpet of heavenly color on a bright spring day, covering the leaves and gnarled tree roots with color and life, it is a visual spring miracle. Perfect for early spring.
Ok, the words. It is an erect plant of some 1 to 2 feet high carrying "showy, nodding flowers, " "clusters of pink buds that open into light-blue trumpet-shaped flowers. " The leaves are nice and green, "smooth and gray-green, " in fact, elliptical or egg-shaped or oval, depending on who you read.
Bluebells grow wonderfully well in rich, moist woods. Opinions on meadows vary, some say yes, some no. But floodplains, such as those at Riverbend, bring them to perfect pitch at this time of year.
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