MERTENSIA

genus of about 50 temperate North American and Eurasian species of plants in the family Boraginaceae, including the Virginia cowslip, or Virginia bluebell (M. virginica), a popular spring-blooming garden and wild flower with drooping, bell-shaped, pink flowers that turn blue. The Virginia cowslip is native in moist woods and wet meadows in eastern North America and has smooth, elliptical leaves and reaches approximately 60 cm (2 feet) high. Northern shorewort, oyster plant, or sea-lungwort (M. maritima), a fleshy, grayish-leaved plant, is about the same height as Virginia bluebell but has smaller flowers that bloom in summer. It grows along pebbly coasts of northern North America and northern Europe. Languid ladies (M. paniculata), from western North America, is smaller, hairy, and summer blooming, and it has smaller, more nodding blooms.