Posts Tagged ‘field’
a moment of beautiful – Blue-eyed Grass
the space: the meadow above the lake
the beautiful: a bright blue flower – Blue-eyed Grass
All grass is not grass. In spring, some of those green blades reveal their true identity. You look down, and a blue eye stares back at you. You have found Blue-eyed Grass, Sisyrinchium montanum Greene.
Blue-eyed grass is not a grass at all, but a member of the iris family. It inhabits moist, open ground in fields and meadows, and blooms in late spring and early summer. The plant is low and slender, with a deep blue flower and a bright yellow center, borne at the top of a straight, usually unbranched, stem. The stem is two-edged, flattened on the margins. The flowers are borne in the axil of a sharp, upheld bract called a spathe. In French, the plant is called Bermudienne. Montanum means ‘of the mountains’.
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Blue-eyed Grass
Sisyrinchium montanum Greene
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I walk in grass,
but it isn’t grass –
Sisyrinchium
it winks at me
with azure eyes,
and I blink brown at them
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Blue-eyed Grass
stands straight and still,
staunch Bermudienne
simple maid
with a watchful eye,
and a sword above her head
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© Jane Tims 2012
