May 5, 2011 Blue-Eyed Who?

Blue-Eyed Mary, is an uncommon, but not endangered, Indiana wildflower. When a group of friends visited ACRES Spurgeon Woodland Reserve last Friday, we didn't find it.  (Click on our April 29 post, A "Must SeeWoods" - Spurgeon, for photos and a list of what we did see).  But today when we returned to Spurgeon with nine children, ages 4-14, there it was.

Blue-eyed Mary, Collinsia verna, a relative of Snapdragons

Blue-eyed Mary grows from seed each year, unlike most spring wildflowers, which are perennials.  It's unusual flowers have two blue and two white petals.

Below are Spurgeon flowers pictured in our April 29 post, but I couldn't resist taking more pictures.

Drooping Trillium, Trillium flexipes

Blue Phlox, Phlox divaricata

Wood Poppy, Sylophorum diphyllum

Richard Louv, author of the 2008 bestseller Last Child in the Woods, worries that too many children today are prone to "nature deficit disorder".  But today nine children, showed no signs of such a disorder.  They focused intently on their natural world throughout our 90 minute walk. 

Children without a trace of "nature deficit disorder".