Mertensia virginica

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Virginia Bluebell
File:Mertensia virginica.bbg.jpg
Scientific classification
Kingdom:
Plantae
(unranked):
Angiosperms
(unranked):
Eudicots
(unranked):
Asterids
Order:
(unplaced)
Family:
Boraginaceae
Genus:
Mertensia
Species:
M. virginica
Binomial name
Mertensia virginica

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Mertensia virginica (common names Virginia bluebell, Virginia cowslip, lungwort oysterleaf, Roanoke bells) is a spring ephemeral plant with bell-shaped sky-blue flowers, native to eastern North America.

Description

Virginia bluebell has rounded and gray-green leaves, borne on stems up to 24 in (60 cm) tall. They are petiolate at the bottom of the flower stem and sessile at the top.

Flowerbuds are pink. Flowers have five petals fused into a tube, five stamens, and a central pistil (carpel). They are borne in mid-spring in nodding spiral-shaped cymes at the end of arched stems. Flowers are usually blue, but white or pink flowers occur rarely.

The stamens and stigma are spaced too far apart for self-fertilization. The flower can be pollinated by bumblebees but, due to its funnel shape bumblebees must hover, making the bumblebee a rare pollinator. Butterflies are the most common pollinators because they can easily perch on the edges and still enjoy the nectar.

In early summer, each fertilized flower produces four seeds within wrinkled nuts, and the plant goes dormant till the next spring.

Plants are hardy to hardiness zone 3: −40 °C (−40 °F).

In cultivation, M. virginica has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.[1]

  • Photos
  • Virginia Bluebell Mertensia virginica Plant 2262px.jpg

    Leaves before blooming

  • Mertensia buds cropped.png

    Flower buds

  • Mertensia virginica (Flower).jpg

    Typical blue-flowered form at the botanical gardens in Berlin, Germany

  • Mertensia-virginica-pink-2014-05-05-Fox-Chapel-PA.jpg

    A pink-flowered form

  • Bluebell3.jpg

    A white-flowered form

  • Mertensia virginica seeds.jpg

    Fruits

  • Mertensia virginica colony in floodplain forest habitat 2.jpg

    Woods carpeted in bluebells

Nomenclature

Mertensia virginica is the type species for the genus Mertensia and was first described by Linnaeus in 1753 as Pulmonaria virginica.[2] The genus Pulmonaria is today restricted to 19 species in the tribe Boragineae. When Albrecht Wilhelm Roth erected the genus Mertensia in 1797, he named the Virginia bluebell as Mertensia pulmonarioides, apparently unaware that Linnaeus had already named it in his Species Plantarum. Roth's name is a superfluous synonym and has been used in recent literature.[3]

References

  1. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  2. ↑ Carl von Linné (Linnaeus). 1753. Species Plantarum 1:135. (see External links below)
  3. ↑ James S. Pringle. 2004. "Nomenclature of the Virginia-bluebell, Mertensia virginica (Boraginaceae)". SIDA, contributions to botany 21(2):771-775.(see External links below)

External links

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