| Description | A beautiful woodland blue flowering ephemeral plant. Needs a shaded moist sites. |
|---|---|
| Pronunciation | (mer-TEN-si-ah)(ver-jin-I-ca) |
| Plant Type | All Plants, Wild Flowers |
| Hardiness Zone | 3-9 |
| Sunlight | shaded |
| Moisture | moist to wet, never dry |
| Soil & Site | cool, organic, moist |
| Flowers | blue to pink, 5 parted, corolla forms a trumpet, a small nodding cluster on a stalk (cyme), May to June |
| Leaves | basil leaves elliptic and long stalked, upper leaves nearly sessile, ephemeral plants that go dormant in the summer |
| Dimensions | forms clumps, 12-24 inches tall |
| Maintenance | Should be planted with something to fill in the space after it dies back. |
| Propagation | division, seeds |
| Native Site | Native to North America. |
| Misc Facts | Named for Franz Carl Mertens a 19th century botanist at Bremen. |
| Author's Notes | This as one of my favorite wildflowers. I have always seen it growing in moist to wet sites, with spring sun and summer shade. Shade becomes denser as the trees leaf out |
| Notes & Reference | #13-Growing Woodland Plants (Birdseye) #40-Herbaceous Ornamental Plants (Steven Stills), #65-North Woods Wildflowers (Ladd, #100-Wildflowers of Wisconsin and the Upper Midwest (Black and Judziewicz)) |
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