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Blueweed

Blueweed

Echium vulgare

Identify the Blueweed from a photo and log your finds with Florapass.

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How common: Common

Alien species

Blueweed is a striking two‑year wildflower with bristly stems and bright blue blooms. The flowers open pinkish red and turn deep blue as they age. You often see it on sunny, dry ground such as roadsides, gravel pits and banks.

Did you know?

  • It spends its first year as a low circle of leaves and sends up a tall flowering stem the next year.
  • Bees and butterflies visit it eagerly.

About the species

Identification

Two‑year plant, 30–90 cm tall. Stems are unbranched or branching low down, very rough with stiff hairs, often reddish at the base. Leaves narrow, simple‑edged and hairy; lower leaves with a short stalk, upper leaves sit on the stem. Flower clusters form long, loose sprays near the top, with side branches slightly coiled. Each funnel‑shaped flower is about 1–2 cm across, starting pink to red and turning bright blue; several long pinkish threads with pollen stick out. Each flower ripens four small, hard, wrinkled seeds. The colour change and bristly feel help tell it apart. Flowers in Finland in mid to late summer.

Plant group

Herbaceous plants

Habitat

meadow, yards and roadsides

Flowering

Jun–Aug

About the habitat

Likes open, sunny, dry places on sandy or gravelly soil: roadsides, field margins, embankments, rail yards and similar disturbed ground. Sometimes grown in gardens and escapes. Fairly common in southern Finland; farther north only occasional or scattered.

Sources

Photo: Robert Flogaus-Faust, CC BY 4.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Echium vulgare RF.jpg

Text: Pinkka: Laaja maatalouslajintuntemus 4 op - Koppisiemeniset, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.39402

Text: Pinkka: A Pohjolan kasveja - Dactylis-Epilobium, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.39402

Text: Wikipedia (Finnish), CC BY-SA 4.0 https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyl%C3%A4neidonkieli

See also