Blue-eyed grass is a perennial wildflower with fibrous roots, flattened or winged stems, and flat, grasslike leaves.
The flowers are small, 6-pointed "stars," variable in size; blue, violet, or white; arising at ends of unbranched stems. There is usually a yellow "eye" at the center of the flower. Blooms April–June.
The leaves are basal, grasslike, stiff, folded along midrib, upright, and pale green.
Similar species: Missouri has four species in the genus Sisyrinchium, and all are called "blue-eyed grass." They can be difficult to tell apart. The species S. campestre, the subject of this page, is the most common. Our other species are S. albidum, which is very similar to S. campestre; and S. angustifolium and S. atlanticum, which are easy to confuse with one another. A. angustifolium is scattered statewide, while S. atlanticum is a Coastal Plain plant that lives in Missouri only in our southeastern (Bootheel) counties.
Height: to 2 feet, but usually much shorter.
Statewide, though apparently absent from the southeastern lowlands.
Habitat and Conservation
Occurs on prairies, glades, upland forests, pastures on thin soil, and along railroad tracks and other rights-of-way.
This is the most common of Missouri's four species of blue-eyed grass.
Status
Native Missouri wildflower; prairie wildflower; glade wildflower.
Human Connections
Many native plants make good native garden subjects. Please make sure that your plants come from ethical nurseries that buy from suppliers who cultivate their stock, and not from those who dig them unethically from the wild.
Ecosystem Connections
Blue-eyed grass is a common prairie wildflower, and it, along with hundreds of other plants that make up the complex matrix of species in tallgrass prairies, are the native foods of what were once massive herds of American bison.
This species might look something like a grass when it's not blooming, but it is actually in the iris family (Iridaceae).
