Siberian Squill
I’ve had several people send me photos of this flower asking for help with an ID. Since it is a cultivated plant, it isn’t likely to be in field guides, or on most other wildflower web sites. That doesn’t mean you won’t find it in the wild, though.
It is a small plant that blooms in spring and has 6-petaled flowers, with a line down the middle of each petal. The flowers are somewhat bell-shaped before they fully open. Leaves are narrow and grass-like, mostly basal.
Most of the photos I’ve seen had white flowers with blue lines, and creamy colored stamens. I did see one myself that was all blue, with blue stamens. I suspect that was probably a different cultivar of the same species. I’ve read that this plant can be an aggressive breeder under the right conditions.
Tags: spring, Wildflowers
March 19th, 2010 at 1:38 pm
The picture you have is actually striped squill, Puschkinia scilloides: white with blue stripes, in a tight cluster. Siberian squill has nodding flowers, blue with dark blue stripes, in a sparse cluster — up to three flowers per stem.
A more picky distinction is the stamens: Siberian squill stamens are free (like lilies); striped squill stamens are inside a little tube.
Here’s a picture of the true Siberian squill (assuming HTML works):
March 19th, 2010 at 2:54 pm
Thanks for posting that–I’m not into cultivars so am much more likely to make a mistake on them than on the native wildflowers.