Kingdom: Plantae

Phylum: Magnoliophyta -- flowering plants

Class: Magnoliopsida -- dicots

Order: Scrophulariales

Family: Scrophulariaceae -- figwort

Common Name: blue-eyed Mary

Species Code: COPA3

Origin: Native to open areas of western North America that are moist in the spring, extending east to Saskatchewan and south to Nebraska and New Mexico, with some disjunct populations even farther east.

Rare: no

Form: forb, winter annual, spreading to erect, 5-40 cm tall, roots fibrous, stems simple or branched, short-hairy or rarely glabrous.

Duration: annual

Longevity: annual

Habitat Type: prairie

Wetland Indicator Status: not listed

Leaves: opposite or whorled, glabrous or short-hairy, usually entire; lower leaves small, petiolate, spatulate to rotund, often purple beneath, deciduous; upper narrow and short petiolate to sessile, elliptical to oblong to linear, usually less than 5 cm long and 12 mm wide, becoming linear and bract-like in the inflorescence.

Mature height: 2-10 inches

Flowers: perfect, axillary, lower solitary, upper clustered; calyx 3-6 mm long, 5 lobed, campanulate; corolla 4-10 mm long, lower lip with 3 lobes, blue; upper lip 2 lobed, whitish to pink, tube bent and pouched near the base.

Flower color: pink/blue

Bloom: April, May, extending into June and July in moist forested sites

Bloom starts on: early April

Bloom ends on: mid May

Fruit: capsule, ellipsoid, shorter than the calyx, 3-5 mm long; seeds ellipsoid, 1-2.3 mm long.

Characteristics:
C. tenella in Piper & Beattie 1914.
350,000 seeds/lb (USDA NRCS Pullman PMC 2005).
n=7 (Baldwin et al 2004).
Some populations in British Columbia are tetraploid, but the species is a diploid over most of its range (Parachnowitsch & Elle 2004).
Pollinated by bees and hover flies (Elle & Carney 2003).
Pollinated by several species of Bombus and Osmia (Parachnowitsch & Elle 2004).
Flowers are perfect.
Fruit is a capsule.
May be either self pollinated or outcrossed. Outcrossed plants produce more seed (Elle & Carney 2003).
C. parviflora seed and wheat (Triticum aestivum) were the most common seeds stored by Columbia ground squirrels (Spermophilus columbianus) (Shaw 1926).
Rabbits and mice eat the plants.

Sun requirement: full sun to partial shade

Soil moisture: xeric to mesic

Precipitation: 16-50 inches (USDA NRCS PLANTS Database 2009).

Sowing time: fall

Transplant time: not recommended

Stratification: cold moist

Seed yield: low

Seed harvest: difficult

Seed first harvest: first spring

Seed cleaning: easy

Planting duration: annual

Seed insect problem: none noted

Seed shatter: high

Seed size: small

Seed harvest date: late May

Seed comments: very small plants, indeterminate ripening, winter annual

Herbaria: Specimen data and digital resources from The Consortium of Pacific Northwest Herbaria

Key words: annual upland

Propagation:
1 protocol in the Native Plant Network
Pullman Washington Plant Materials Center

Other Progagation Information:
Winter annual which reproduces sexually by seed. Seed sown in the spring will sometimes germinate but the plants will be stunted. Spring germination in the wild is unlikely.

Notes: Collinsia parviflora is a tiny little plant with great little flowers that bloom early in the spring. Seems like it would be good sown around other plants for early color. Self sows readily but doesn’t persist where it is overtopped early in the season. Seeds need to be sown in autumn for best results. While it is a winter annual, some seeds will germinate in unusually cool springs, although the plants don’t thrive like fall sown plants. Common name is blue-eyed Mary (Skinner et al 2005).

References:
Baldwin, B.G., S. Boyd, B.J. Ertter, D.J. Keil, R.W. Patterson, T.J. Rosatti, and D.H. Wilken (eds). 2004. Jepson Online Interchange for California Floristics. University and Jepson Herbaria, University of California, Berkeley, CA. Accessed 8/2/09 online at http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/interchange.html

Elle, Elizabeth, and Robert Carney. 2003. Reproductive Assurance Varies with Flower Size in Collinsia parviflora (Scrophulariaceae). American Journal of Botany 90:888-896.

Ganders, F.R. and G.R. Krause. 1986. Systematics of Collinsia parviflora and C. grandiflora. Madrono 33: 67-79.

Parachnowitsch, Amy L., and Elizabeth Elle. 2004. Variation in Sex Allocation and Male-Female Trade-Offs in Six Populations of Collinsia parviflora (Scrophulariaceae S.L.). American Journal of Botany 91:1200-1207.

Piper, C.V., and R.K. Beattie. 1914. The Flora of Southeastern Washington and Adjacent Idaho. Lancaster, PA: Press of the New Era Printing Company. 296 pp.

Skinner, David M., Paul Warnick, Bill French, and Mary Fauci. 2005. More Palouse Forbs for Landscaping. USDA NRCS Pullman Plant Materials Center and Palouse Prairie Foundation. Online at http://www.wsu.edu/pmc_nrcs/Docs/More_Forbs_for_Landscaping.pdf

Shaw, William T. 1926. The Storing Habit of the Columbian Ground Squirrel. American Midland Naturalist 60:367-373.

USDA NRCS, Pullman Plant Materials Center. 2005. Seed Weights of Some Palouse Native Species. Pullman Plant Materials Center, Pullman, Washington. Online at http://www.wsu.edu/~pmc_nrcs/Docs/Seed_Weights_Palouse_Native_Species.pdf

USDA NRCS. 2009. The PLANTS Database (http://plants.usda.gov, 2 August 2009). National Plant Data Center, Baton Rouge, LA 70874-4490 USA.

Links:
Plant Profile from the USDA PLANTS Database
Species information from the University of Washington Herbarium