There is a wildflower in full bloom now in northeastern
Wisconsin that virtually carpets some damp, partially shaded
roadsides and trails in a nearly pure light blue mist. A poll
taken of many people living in the Northern Hemisphere would very
likely find that this popular widespread plant is one of the top
all-time favorites – the forget-me-not.
It is a very easy plant to grow in the proper environment and
even though it can perform as either a perennial or an annual, it
always produces so much seed that the planting is permanent once
established. I asked our close friends, Ted and Agnes, who have
hundreds of them growing in their many flower beds, "Don’t
you consider these flowers dangerous invasives?"
Their reply was, "Oh no, never! We love them so much,
and when they’re finished adding such wonderful early summer
color to our property we simply pull many of them out – piles of
them. Next year they’ll be back in blossom as though we had
never decreased their number."
The forget-me-not belongs to the borage family and includes
several familiar plants such as comfry, viper’s bugloss, puccoon,
hound’s tongue and Virginia bluebells. The genus name of the
forget-me-not is Myosotis (my-o-SO-tis) and means a
mouse’s ear in illusion to the shape of the leaves. The various
species are generally considered to be perennials (but sometimes
annuals) having slender, sprawling, fine-hairy stems and
gray-green, oblong, lance-shaped leaves.
The species we are most familiar with in our area is M.
sylvatica, (sill-VAT-i-ca), sometimes referred to as the true
forget-me-not. It is a common cultivated flower, another
Eurasian species that has escaped very extensively to dry as well
as damp ground especially along trails and roads through woods,
even spreading into woods. The species name, sylvatica,
refers to the woods or forest.
The corolla, the accumulation of petals, of this flower is
generally a quarter to a third of an inch broad with five rounded
lobes, light blue with a yellow eye. Should you come across
patches of forget-me-nots having occasional white-flowered or
pink-flowered specimens, you are enjoying M. sylvatica.
Another species of the Midwest is M. scorpioides
(scor-pee-o-EYE-dees), a common garden species from Eurasia,
thoroughly naturalized and often abundant in ditches, along
streams and rivers or shores, in swampy forests (deciduous as
well as coniferous), and wet hollows in woods and in all sorts of
wet muck and mud. Its raceme (ra-SEAM) of blossoms often curls
over like a scorpion’s tail, and hence its name.
There is a species, Myosotis alpestris (meaning alpine)
that is the state flower of Alaska where it is simply called the
forget-me-not. Sometimes confusing the issue of this plant is a
closely-related so-called "alpine forget-me-not" that
grows up to 9000 feet in the Rocky Mountains but which is an
entirely different genus and species, Eritrichium
elongatum.
There is yet another species, M. laxa (having very open
racemes) that has tiny blossoms, usually only an eighth to a
fourth of an inch broad, that prefers very wet conditions. It
often grows in shallow, slow moving brooks and sometimes becomes
so rank that a large mass of them chokes off the flow of water.
Henry David Thoreau wrote of this wildflower in his June 12,
1852 journal; "The mouse-ear forget-me-not (Myosotis laxa)
has now extended its racemes very much, and hangs over the edge
of the brook. It is one of the most interesting minute flowers.
It is the more beautiful for being small and unpretending, for
even flowers must be modest."
Tennyson wrote: "The sweet forget-me-nots that grow for
happy lovers…". Longfellow had beautiful thoughts of these
widely admired plants when he wrote: "Silently, one by one,
in the infinite meadows of heaven blossomed the lovely stars, the
forget-me-nots of the angels."
My guess is that some of you have bought and planted
wildflower seeds, "A Meadow In A Can," for example, and
now may have quite a few flowers that you never dreamed (or
wished) you had bought. A very common seed to be included in
these collections is the forget-me-not. Unfortunately these
mixtures quite often include seeds not listed on the packages, or
in the cans, and others that are mentioned which may be downright
dangerous to plant. These are the species that can so easily
get out of hand and, rather than producing the wonderful color
you expected, become nothing but terribly spreading invasive
pests.
Plants such as yarrow, redroot pigweed, dame’s rocket (one of
the colorful mustards), and yellow toadflax are capable of
escaping from one’s well-intentioned plantings and invading
surrounding nearby areas where they may do considerable damage by
crowding out valuable natives.
A romantic legend tells us that a medieval knight, gathering
blue flowers along a stream for his lady love, was suddenly swept
away by flood waters. As he disappeared, he tossed the bouquet
to his lady with the immortal words, "forget me not!"
I too shall continue to enjoy the unforgettable heavenly blue
mists of forget-me-nots each June.
Complementary colors in nature of two exotic plants,
blue forget-me-nots, accented by some ubiquitous dandelions.
This column appeared in the Door County Advocate
on 06/21/2002.
© Copyright 2002 Roy Lukes. All rights reserved.
