Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses - Narrow-leaf blue-eyed grass

NARROW-LEAF BLUE-EYED GRASS

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Sisyrinchium angustifolium Mill.

Cherokee County, Kansas

Perennial

Height: 12-18 inches

Family: Iridaceae - Iris Family

Flowering Period: May, June

Also Called:

Pointed blue-eyed grass.

Stems:

Plants dark olive green. Spreading to erect, branched, .12 to .2 inch wide, glabrous.

Leaves:

2-6, basal and cauline, simple, erect; blade linear to lanceolate, shorter than inflorescence, .12 to .25 inch wide, parallel-veined, margins entire.

Inflorescences:

Terminal, compound, with 2 or more long-peduncled spathes arising from axils of leaf-like bract; spathes green or tinged purple, outer bracts of spathe with margins fused basally for .12 to .16 inch.

Flowers:

Tepals 6, pale blue to violet, occasionally white, bases yellow, petal-like, in 2 whorls, distinct, oblong, .3 to .5 inch long, tips rounded to emarginated; stamens 3; pistil 1, 3-carpellate; styles 3.

Fruits:

Capsules, dark brown, spherical, .2 to .28 inch; seeds many, black, .02 to 05 inch.

Habitat:

Moist woodlands, stream banks, and moist tallgrass prairie.

Distribution:

Principally east 1/6 of Kansas

Origin:

Native

Uses:

The Cherokee gave an infusion of root to children for diarrhea and ate the plant as greens.

Comments:

Sisyrinchium, pig and snout, alluding to swine grubbing for the roots and angustifolium narrow and leaved.