Plant Wiki

The open plant encyclopedia

Know any plant.
Grow it well.

Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.

  • 13,000+plants with full pages
  • 365,000+plant species worldwide
  • 220+countries covered

Common in

See all

The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.

What do you want to do?

Popular plants

Browse all plants

See them in 3D

All plants in 3D

Browse plants

Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.

Plant Wiki › Browse plants

Tiny bluet

Houstonia pusilla

Tiny bluet
Photo: Karen Burch (Gardener2005), CC BY-SA 3.0

Tiny bluet is a low, tufted native wildflower of the eastern and central United States, under about 15 cm tall, with small blue-tinged flowers in spring. It grows well as a groundcover in thin grassy areas with full sun and adequate moisture.

Family
Rubiaceae (Coffee family)
Grows as
Grass
Light
Full sun
Water
Keep soil moist during establishment, then water when the soil begins to dry in dry spells.
Soil
Mildly acidic, moist but well-drained soil; thin grassy ground or lawn edges.
Temperature
Hardy in temperate climates; tolerates winter cold of the native range.
How easy
Easy
Native range
C. & EC. U.S.A.
Climate
temperate

About

Houstonia pusilla (tiny bluet) is a plant in the family Rubiaceae native to the United States and common in the southeastern and central parts of the country, from Texas to Florida north to Long Island and South Dakota, plus an isolated population in Pima County, Arizona.

Houstonia pusilla is a short plant 6 inches (150 mm) or less in height with a tiny blue toned, yellow centered four lobed flower with a 0.25–0.33 inches (6.4–8.4 mm) diameter. The plant has a center rosette form and green herbaceous foliage with leaves up to 0.5 inches (13 mm) long. The leaves are opposite and each flower grows from a single branch growing from the leaf axil. This plant requires full sun and blooms in spring and early summer. It is a groundcover multiplying by self sowing and grows in mildly acidic soil where the grass is thin and moisture is adequate to support the plant.

Other Houstonia plants

Needleleaf bluet · Azure bluet · Canadian summer bluet · Correll's bluet · Croft's bluet · Matted bluet · Longleaf summer bluet · Southern bluet · Ouachita bluet · Houstonia palmeri · Greenman's bluet · Roundleaf bluet

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Houstonia pusilla by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.

The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.

Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.

Credits & terms

Identify a plant

Point at a leaf or flower and snap. One plant in frame works best.

Your photo
Starting camera…