[Illustration]
[Sidenote: =Baby Blue-eyes, Mariana=
_Nemóphila insígnis_
=Blue and white
Spring
California=]
These are exceedingly charming little plants, with slender, weak, hairy
stems, varying a good deal in height, but usually low and spreading,
and pretty, light green, soft, hairy foliage, sprinkled with many
lovely flowers, an inch or more across, with hairy calyxes and sky-blue
corollas, which are clear white in the center and more or less specked
with brown, with ten hairy scales in the throat. The blue of their
bright little faces is always wonderfully brilliant, but they are
variable and are usually deeper in color and rather smaller in the
South. This is one of the commonest kinds of Nemophila in California
and it is a general favorite. It is called Mariana by the Spanish
Californians.
[Sidenote: =Baby Blue-eyes=
_Nemóphila intermèdia_
=Blue and white
Summer
California=]
This is much like the last, but it is a taller and more slender plant,
usually about ten inches high. The lovely delicate flowers are less
than an inch across, with light blue corollas, usually shading to white
at the center and delicately veined with blue, or speckled with purple
dots. This grows among the underbrush.
[Sidenote: =Spotted Nemophila=
_Nemóphila maculàta_
=White and purple
Summer
California=]
These are charming flowers, their corollas oddly and prettily marked.
The weak, hairy stems, from three to twelve inches long, are usually
spreading and the leaves are opposite, hairy, and light green. The
flowers are about an inch across, with hairy calyxes and white
corollas, which are prettily dotted with purple and usually have a
distinct indigo spot at the tip of each petal, which gives an unusual
effect. The filaments are lilac and the anthers and pistil are whitish.
This is common in meadows around Yosemite and in other places in the
Sierras at moderate altitudes.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: Baby Blue-eyes--Nemophila intermedia.]
[Illustration: Spotted Nemophila--N. maculata.