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Mertensia lanceolata
Also called Foothill mertensia, Lanceleaf chiming bells, Lance Leaved Bluebells, Lance Leaved Lungwort, Prairie Lungwort
Mertensia lanceolata, known as prairie bluebells, lance-leaved bluebells, lance-leaved lungwort, and narrow-leaved languid ladies is a species of flowering plant native to the Rocky Mountains and areas of the northern Great Plains in western North America. A herbaceous perennial it has blue-green leaves alternately arranged on its smooth flowering stalk. Its flower buds are pink-purple and become blue as they open.
Narrow-leaved languid ladies are valued by wildflower gardeners for its dainty vibrant blue flower display and long season of blooming when moisture is good. They grow in either well draining or clay soils and is tolerant of limestone derived soils. Plants will live for many years when given space to grow its deep, branching taproot. It is also rated as with the lowest possible flammability for landscaping to create defensible space by Colorado State University Extension. A germination study of languid ladies found that the species exhibits very little need for cold stratification with 70% of seeds sprouting after four weeks at 21 °C (70 °F), though germination was accelerated by being held at 4.5 °C (40.1 °F) for three months before planting. After just two days the cold treated seeds had 30% germination rates. The species is winter hardy to USDA zone 4. Plants are rarely available from commercial growers and the seeds are somewhat rare even from wildflower seed exchanges.
Mertensia lanceolata grows in the Rocky Mountains from northern New Mexico in the south to Alberta in Canada, including Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and Montana. It also grows in some states and provinces to the east of the Rockies, Manitoba and Saskatchewan in Canada, and Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota in the United States.
Beautiful bluebells · Tall fringed bluebells · Rocky Mountain bluebells · Small bluebells · Oysterleaf · Oblongleaf bluebells · Tall bluebells · Siberian Bluebells · Virginia bluebells · Bluebells
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Mertensia lanceolata by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.
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.
