A few leaves and the flower-stem, from 4 to 8 inches in height, rise from the root.
The leaf is like a grass-blade, fine-pointed, flat, and very thin, especially along the margins; it is slightly ridged with veins, and is smooth. In color, a strong green with a hint of blue.
The 6 petal-like parts of the flower are oblong and blunt-pointed, with an abrupt sharp tip; their texture is thin, and they spread widely. The coloring is charming, a pale or dark blue, with purple markings, and a central design in yellow daintily outlined in purple; the prominent pistil is yellow at the base, and purple above, while its 3-cleft tip is orange. Two or three flowers are closely grouped on a little foot-stem which rises from betwixt two sheath-like leaves set on the summit of the rigidly upright flower-stem. This stem is furnished with thin sword-like margins.
Though not found in abundance generally, this is not an uncommon plant, and occasionally a meadow may be found which every June morning is turned to a sea of blue, like a flax field for fullness of coloring, and every succeeding afternoon becomes green again, because this little Iris shuts her blue eye by mid-day. But one flower blooms on a plant at a time.
BLUE-EYED GRASS: Sisyrinchium angustifolium.
AMARYLLIS FAMILY.
AMARYLLIDACEÆ.
| Star Grass. | Hypoxis erecta. |
Found in grassy pastures and fields from May to the end of June.
The leaves and flower-stems, from 6 to 8 inches in height, rise together from the ground.