Nemophila menziesii
Baby Blue Eyes
Family: Boraginaceae
This is a cool season annual that gets about 6 in. tall and 1 ft. wide. It is well-known for its bright-blue, five-petaled flowers with white centers. These occur in clusters at branch tips. The branches and deeply cut leaves are hairy.
Plant from seed or plant from September or October throughout the cool season until as late as March. Plants that emerge later will be smaller when they bloom. Provide regular moisture and full to part sun. Plants will bloom until the heat exhausts them, or until they dry out. Plants reseed readily and may re-emerge in the fall in moist locations.
Flowers service numerous pollinators and are important, as are all cool season annuals, in their timing. This is also a larval host for the funereal duskywing butterfly (Erynnis funeralis) and many moth species.
The genus Nemophila means "woodland-loving;" it derives from the Latin nemos (a grove or wooded pasture) and Greek philos (loving) and refers to other species in the genus. The specific epithet menziesii is after Archibald Menzies, a Scottish physician and rival naturalist to David Douglas. Menzies first documented the tree on Vancouver Island in 1791.
The plant is native to California, Baja California, and Oregon.