Royal Blue!

Here's one of the bluest flowers you can find, the Blueweed, Blue Devil, or Viper's Bugloss.  It's a mediteranean  plant, but widely naturalized in eastern North America.  And once you look closely, it's a glorious royal blue colour.

I actually rescued this plant from the mower.  I had been watching for them to come into bloom, because it's such an interesting flower, and saw this tall stem growing in the gravel right beside the road on my morning walk.  But the township's mower was headed toward me, and would chop this into oblivion.  So I rescued it, just in time, took it home, and put it in a vase 10 days ago.  I got out my tripod and decided to try and get some pictures with greater depth-of-field than my usual hand-held efforts.

Here it is, quite a tall spike of blooms, with stamens sticking out obviously.  It's a very hairy plant too, and grows in dry soil like gravel or sand, along roadsides or railways.

You can see the fine hairs, which almost feel sharp if you grasp it, making it feel like a soft thistle.

It actually has blue pollen, on the ends of the red stamens, and the bees love it.

One of those unusual flowers I watch for each year at this time.  It's still in the vase on the kitchen table.

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