Peak blue: Is it a blue bell?

A youngish neighbor politely asked if the carpet of blue flowers were blue bells.  No.  But it illustrates the uselessness of common names in general.  Has there ever been a blue pendant flower that hasn't been called a blue bell?  The North American blue bell is more of a trumpet in the Borage family and the English/Spanish blue bells are very similar to hyacinths, so not even closely related, but more bell shaped. This year peak blue was judged to have been reached on Sunday 29 March, which is more or less pretty close to the usual date for this event.  The Phactors live in an oldish house (bit over 100) in an oldish neighborhood. So trees have had a chance to get big, but other rather old plants do not respond the way.  Often they form a large patch that continues to grow larger in diameter.  Our blue bells are (Scilla siberica) a small bulb forming lilyish plant, sometimes called squill,  that bears 2-4 flowers just a bit over a cm in diameter.  They scoff at cold early spring temperatures (note the specific epithet suggests a Siberian origin) and late snows mean nothing to its flowering as TPP has noted in this spot in previous years (a quick search on blue lawn will uncover a number of blog posts on this subject and similar topics (here, here, here, here, here, and here).  Parts of our lawn are a continuous carpet of blue flowers.  And while a lawn mowing hassle (see green slime), peak blue is immensely cheerful, even in the middle of a pandemic.

Different names means they are different. Take a look.

While walking through our gardens, the F1 asked a good botanical question.  Is that just a pale squill or is it something different?  The answer is actually it was just a pale squill, but in another part of the gardens there is another species that looks superficially like a pale squill.  Here they are together.  The pale squill looks just like regular squill except it is a  nearly white pale blue. What you see here is Scilla siberica (left) and Pushkinia scilloides (right). The flower sizes are similar especially when newly opened, and the coloring along the midvein of the showy perianth (petals) parts is darker.
The squill perianth opens more widely.  The Pushkinia stays more bell shaped.  Flipping them over shows a lot more differences.  The squill has longer stamen filaments and blue anthers, and usually only 1 or 2 flowers per stalk.  The Pushkinia has shorter, flattened filaments fused into a column with yellow anthers on the inner surface surrounding a smaller pistil, and usually more than 2 flowers per stalk.  Now to make matters slightly more complicated, your lawn might also have (TPP doesn't, but his previous lawn did.) Chionodoxa, glory of the snow, concurrently flowering as well.  Its flowers are also blue, but tend to be slightly bigger, to face more upwards, and to have  lighter-colored centers.  Both can naturalize and spread across your lawn.

Peak Blueness is Late

If you search on "blue lawn", you will find a series of TPP posts on our blue spring lawn, which  is pretty spectacular and locally known.  This year is easily a week later than usual and as the temperature is predicted to get quite low tomorrow night it might be a bit short-lived too.  Many decades ago, someone planted Scilla siberica and they multiplied and prospered. Now there are thousands that have taken over portions of our lawn, as the image demonstrates, and it you don't mind waiting until they die down before mowing to avoid transforming the leaves into green slime, they are a great spring feature. How cheerful is that. Watch where you walk please.  

Friday Fabulous Flower - Light blue lawns

Unlike in the burbs, the Phactors live in a historic district with old houses and old lawns, owned by old people (actually only a few of us) and here abouts, old lawns sometimes means blue lawns, virtual carpets of Scilla (squill) appear in the early spring.  On a couple of previous years, TPP has treated you to views of our blue lawn (here and here).  Our lawn will reach peak blueness either today or tomorrow, but these blues are quite cheerful. Lawns get this way when these little bulbs continue to reproduce unchecked for decades.  A couple of yards away a neighbor has a light blue lawn, which is really quite novel because the bulb is much less well known and much less commonly planted, and of course, these were planted some decades ago too. This is the genus Pushkinia.  This genus is native to the Middle East and is named for a Russian botanist.  The common name, although you seldom see it, is striped squill because of the bluish tint on the whitish petals is more or less a stripe. Some of these grow in one of our lawns, but it remains predominately blue.  Pretty cheerful, don't you agree? And some people only have grass.

Friday Fabulous Future Flowers - the blue lawn

The Phactors' blue lawn is almost upon us (which TPP has reported on before); the peak flowering of the thousands of Scilla bulbs that actually form a major component of our lawn in the spring. Dang, if we aren't going to be so busy that it'll be tough to find the time to enjoy the display. All that blue will be a minor pain in a few weeks, but right now all those blue flowers are a cheerful reminder than spring has sprung (and fortunately or unfortunately bunnies don't eat it).  It may be that so much squill exists because bunnies don't eat it. Decades ago someone turned this plant loose upon this property, and they've multiplied a bit. Way back there the yellow is Forsythia in flower. This year our the Forsythia flowers are toast (so this image is from last year) unless some survived below the snow line, but fortunately the dwarf forsythia or white (pinkish) forsythia (Abeliophyllum) is way more hardy.  If you don't have this smallish shrub anywhere in your landscaping (it is shade tolerant too), you really should consider it. And be careful where you plant your squill.