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Home  /  Plants  /  Budburst Species  /  Mertensia virginica
Phenology Observation Sheet for Wildflowers and Herbs

COMMON NAME

Virginia bluebells

SCIENTIFIC NAME

Mertensia virginica

ALSO KNOWN AS

lungwort, Virginia cowslip

Plant family

Borage (Boraginaceae)

Plant group

Wildflowers and Herbs

Virginia bluebells is an herbaceous perennial plant native to North America.
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OBSERVERS
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OBSERVATIONS
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Identification hints

The distinctive bell-shaped flowers are bright sky-blue in color but pinkish-purple before they open. Look for this striking flower in the moist woodlands of eastern North America.
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Did you know?

Virginia bluebells are pollinated by all kinds of long-tongued bees and butterflies. The foliage often dies back by mid-summer when the plant begins to go into dormancy. The plant has traditional medicinal uses amongst the Indigenous peoples of North America.
DISTRIBUTION IN TH U.S.
Alabama , Arkansas , Delaware , Georgia , Iowa , Illinois , Indiana , Kansas , Kentucky , Massachusetts , Maryland , Maine , Michigan , Minnesota , Missouri , Mississippi , North Carolina , New Jersey , New York , Ohio , Pennsylvania , South Carolina , Tennessee , Virginia , Wisconsin , West Virginia
HABITAT
Virginia bluebells are usually found in moist, shady sites like wooded areas with rich soil. The species is at risk in Ontario, Canada but abundant in other areas of its range.
ATTRIBUTES
Leaves
The basal leaves of Virginia bluebells are relatively large, up to 8 inches long and 5 inches wide with smooth slender stems that can be long and tinged purple to green. Leaves also emerge from stems in an alternate pattern and are smaller, light green, and oval to egg-shaped.
Flowers
The buds of Virginia Bluebells start out reddish purple and become blue, trumpet-shaped flowers clustered at the ends of stems. Very rarely you might see a bluebell plant with white or pink flowers. They have a long corolla, or thin narrow tube of five fused petals, which flares out into a bell shape at the tip. Flowers are ¾ to 1 in long. In the center, the five yellow tipped stamens barely reach the edge of the flower opening.
Fruits
Each pollinated flower produces four tiny brown nutlets, i.e. seeds covered by a wrinkled stony layer.
Bloom Time
Virginia bluebells are spring ephemerals and bloom from March through June depending on the location.

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