My plant-lore is not nearly as developed as my bird-lore or butterfly-lore. This wildflower was seen at Schoepfle Garden along the banks of the Vermilion River, and I had no idea what it was. So I put some observational skills to work and did a web search for “light blue spring wildflower with six petals with a yellow stamen.” (I should have added “and a green center” but I did not notice it until afterwards.) This led me in the right general direction with a near-miss, the Great Camas. However, the Great Camas is only found on the West Coast, so a further refinement of the search for “Eastern United States” turned up the likely winner, “Atlantic Camas a.k.a. Wild Hyacinth.”
It’s very pretty, and it had filled up the river valley around Schoepfle with waves of azure.
