scilla

(This is my flower post from a few days ago.)

You know it's spring when the scilla is blooming. This is Siberian Scilla (Scilla siberica), also known by the terrifically ugly name of "squill." Though it grows somewhat wild now, this is not a wildflower exactly, but a garden flower gone astray. It must have been popular at one time, because it grows in yards all over the city, but I don't see it in garden catalogs much any more. It's native to the Old World, and is hardy enough that it really does grow in Siberia, but to the best of my knowledge it's not too invasive or aggressive or harmful in any serious way to our New World natives, and I almost exclusively see it growing in lawns, not in any wildernessy setting. It's kind of hard not to love these super-early spring flowers that bloom before almost anything else, patches of bright blue popping up in drab lawns, marking the old location of a flower garden decades ago.