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Nemophila pulchella

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Nemophila pulchella
Eastwood's baby blue-eyes
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Asterids
Order: Boraginales
Family: Boraginaceae
Genus: Nemophila
Species:
N. pulchella
Binomial name
Nemophila pulchella

Nemophila pulchella, known by the common name Eastwood's baby blue-eyes, is a species of flowering plant in the borage family. It is endemic to California, where it is found from the San Francisco Bay Area to the southern Sierra Nevada to the Transverse Ranges. It grows in many types of mountain, foothill, and valley habitats.

Description

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Nemophila pulchella is an annual herb with a fleshy and delicate stem. The leaves are up to 5 centimeters long and generally divided into five wide, rounded lobes. Flowers are solitary, each on a pedicel up to 3 centimeters in length. The flower has a calyx of hairy, pointed sepals. The bowl-shaped flower corolla is white or blue, the largest just over a centimeter wide.

There are three varieties.

  • Frémont's baby blue-eyes, var. fremontii, has white flowers, as does
  • var. gracilis, which is endemic to the Sierra Nevada foothills
  • var. pulchella has blue flowers with white centers.
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