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Descriptive Flora 



Stigma divided into 6 slender, radiating, purple or blue tinted 

 lobes. Blossoms in March and April. Wide spread. 



Sisyrinchium varians Bickness. Blue-eyed Grass. 



These plants have flattened stems and look like tufts of 

 grass bearing dainty, deep blue or violet flowers usually with 

 conspicuous yellow centers. Leaves flattened, folded lengthwise, 

 parallel-veined, sheathing. Flowers less than one inch across, 

 blue turning purple, blossoming one at a time out of the axil of 

 the leaf. Petals and sepals 3 each, alike in size and color, delicate, 

 yellow at base. Stamens 3, small, united to the top. March and 

 April. In meadows, roadsides and dry rocky hillsides. The 

 flowers close at night. 



Sisyrinchium minus Engelm. & Gray. Dwarf Blue-eyed Grass. 



Low, tufted, grass-like plants strongly resembling Sisyrin- 

 chium varians, but much smaller (not over 6" tall) and w r ith tiny 

 reddish-purple flowers striped with darker lines and less than 

 %* across. March and April. In moist soil and dry places, 

 usually where the soil is fine and compact. 



URTICACEAE. Nettle Family. 



IJrtica chamaedryoides Pursh. Stinging Nettle. 



Plants with stinging hairs. Leaves simple, opposite. Blades 

 ovate or lanceolate, blunt-tipped, coarsely saw-toothed, 3-veined 

 at base, on long petioles, and covered on the upper side with 

 hairs that are black at the base, making the blades look as if they 

 were dotted with black glands. Flowers very small, white, in 

 dense globular clusters in the axils of the leaves. Stamens four. 

 Blossoms from February to October. Widespread. 



POLYGONACEAE. Buckwheat Family. 



Eriogonum longifolium Nutt. Wild Buckwheat. 



Summer and fall blossoming plants, one to two feet tall, 

 with one or two slender stalks growing from a very thick root. 



