Family Boraginaceae (Borage or Forget-Me-Not family).
The distinctive arch of the stem marks this as a member of the borage or forget-me-not family. Virginia bluebells bloom in late April and early May in open woodlands and shady moist areas. They are, as the name suggests, commonly blue. But in a large patch you may find other colors occasionally as well: pale lavender, pink, pale purple, and pure white.
Gray describes the genus and the species (though he
seems not to have run across any pink flowers):
MERTENSIA Roth. LUNGWORT
Corolla longer than the deeply 5-cleft or 5-parted
calyx, naked, or with 5 small glandular folds or
appendages in the open throat. Anthers oblong or
arrow-shaped. Style long and thread-form. Nutlets
ovoid, fleshy when fresh, smooth or wrinkled,
obliquely attached by a prominent internal angle; the
scar small. Smooth or soft-hairy perennial herbs, with
pale and entire leaves, and handsome purplish-blue
(rarely white) flowers, in loose and short panicled or
corymbed raceme-like clusters, only the lower one
leafy-bracted; pedicels slender. (Named for Franz Karl
Mertens, a German botanist.)
Corolla trumpet-shaped, with spreading nearly entire
limb and naked throat; filaments slender, exserted;
hypogynous disk 2-lobed.
M. virginica (L.) Link. (VIRGINIAN COWSLIP,
BLUEBELLS.) Very smooth, pale, erect, 2-6 dm. high;
leaves obovate, veiny, those at the root 1-1.5 dm.
long, petioled; corolla trumpet-shaped, 2-2.5 cm.
long, many times exceeding the calyx, light blue
(pinkish in bud), rarely white; nutlets dull and
roughish. Alluvial banks, N. Y. and Ont. to Neb., and
southw. Apr., May.
Still want more bluebells? We have added a second page of pictures to avoid weighing down this one too much.