Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Asiatic Dayflower

If you read the title I bet you can guess that this is not a native species. That being said they are found in about 2/3 of the contiguous US, so they are common while not being native.
These tiny little blue flowers were spread all over, they just started blooming and they are everywhere. That's a big part of how I know they aren't False Dayflowers as those flower much earlier in the year, that and the False ones are purple.
These are very peculiar flowers as they appear to only have two, large, blue petals, kind of like if you ripped the bottom three petals off a violet. This is misleading, Dayflowers do have three petals, the bottom one is just very very very itty-bitty and white. Above it's useful, normal looking, stamen it appears to have three tiny yellow flowers which are actually stamen that do not produce pollen (they're only to attract bugs).
The plant itself is usually grows up 6-12 inches, but can grow up to 3 feet along the ground. The flowers are no more than 1/2 an inch wide. The leaves grow alternately along the stem, the bases seem to wrap around the stem, and the edges curl upwards.

While being absolutely beautiful this plant is deemed a "noxious weed" by many. It was used in Chinese medicine for anti-inflammation and bringing down fevers as well as to treat tonsillitis. It also is used as a dye.

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