14 BLUE Wildflowers Found in Montana! (ID GUIDE)

Did you find a BLUE wildflower in Montana?

Common Blue Wildflowers in Montana

If so, I’m sure you’re wondering what type of wildflower you found! Luckily, you can use this guide to help you identify it. 🙂

Today, we will look at 14 common BLUE wildflowers in Montana.


#1. Heal-All

  • Prunella vulgaris

Types of Blue Wildflowers found in Montana

Also known as Common Self-heal, Woundwort, Heart-of-the-earth, Carpenter’s Herb, Brownwort, or Blue Curls.

Growing Information

  • USDA Hardiness Zone: 4-9
  • Life Cycle: Perennial
  • Approximate mature size: 6-12″ (15-30cm)
  • Bloom Time: Late Spring-Late Fall
  • Sun Exposure: Sun to Partial Shade

This blue wildflower is one of the most common in Montana.

You will find this purplish-blue wildflower on roadsides, gardens, and on the edge of woodlands.

You can even EAT Heal-all! Some people use it in salads, soups, stews, or boiled as a potherb. In addition, this mint plant has been used by many cultures to treat various physical ailments such as herpes, skin lesions, and throat remedies.

This plant attracts butterflies, bees, and other pollinators. As a result, it is often used as a ground cover on border fronts, meadows, and naturalized landscapes.


#2. Bachelor’s Button

  • Centaurea cyanus

Blue Wildflowers species that live in Montana

Also known as Cornflower.

Growing Information

  • USDA Hardiness Zone: 2-4
  • Life Cycle: Annual
  • Approximate mature size: 1-3′ (30-90cm)
  • Bloom Time: Late Spring-Late Summer
  • Sun Exposure: Full Sun to Light Shade

I think this is one of the prettiest blue wildflowers in Montana.

This common plant is a magnet for butterflies. In addition, it’s excellent for cutting and drying.

The Bachelor’s Button flowers are daisy-like and virtually pest and disease-free. And can you believe they are also deer and drought tolerant?! I recommend this easy-to-grow plant for borders of flower beds or rock gardens.


#3. Chicory

  • Cichorium intybus

Types of Blue Wildflowers that live in Montana

Growing Information

  • USDA Hardiness Zone: 3-10
  • Life Cycle: Perennial
  • Approximate mature size: 1-4′ (30-120 cm)
  • Bloom Time: Summer, Fall
  • Sun Exposure: Full Sun

This non-native blue wildflower is found throughout Montana. Typically you will find this plant where it’s sunny and dry, so look for it along roads and open fields.

The exciting thing about Chicory is it is eatable. The leaves are high in vitamins and minerals. You can eat the leaves as a vegetable or in a salad, but beware, they are very bitter tasting. The roots can also be boiled and eaten with butter. Sometimes the root is roasted and ground as a substitute or additive to coffee.

Interestingly, Chicory flowers only bloom for ONE day. And in hot weather, the flower may only be open for a few hours!


#4. Narrowleaf Blue-eyed Grass

  • Sisyrinchium angustifolium

Common Montana Blue Wildflowers

Also known as Bermuda Blue-eyed Grass and Blue-eyed Grass.

Growing Information

  • USDA Hardiness Zone: 4-11
  • Life Cycle: Perennial
  • Approximate mature size: 4-20″ (10-50 cm)
  • Bloom Time: Late Spring-Early Summer
  • Sun Exposure: Full Sun, Partial Sun

This blue wildflower is widespread and found throughout Montana. You will typically see this plant in moist meadows, damp fields, open woods, floodplain forests, sandy thickets, riverbanks, and roadsides.

The Narrowleaf Blue-eyed Grass is an excellent source of nectar and pollen. This makes this plant good for attracting butterflies, bees, and other insects. It also can attract songbirds because many birds eat these perennial seeds.


#5. Blue Vervain

  • Verbena hastata

blue vervain pic

Also known as the American Vervain or Swamp Verbena.

Growing Information

  • USDA Hardiness Zone: 3-9
  • Life Cycle: Perennial
  • Approximate mature size: 2-5′ (60-150cm)
  • Bloom Time: Early Summer-Fall
  • Sun Exposure: Full Sun

Look for this hardy and drought-resistant wildflower in plains, foothills, wet soils, ditches, shores, wet fields, and roadsides in Montana.

The Blue Vervain attracts native bees, honeybees, beneficial wasps, small butterflies, skippers, and moths. It is also a great host plant because the Verbena Moth and the Common Buckeye Butterfly caterpillars feed on the leaves.


#6. Common Blue Violet

  • Viola sororia

common blue violet pic

Also known as Common Meadow Violet, Purple Violet, Woolly Blue Violet, Hooded Violet, and Wood Violet.

Growing Information

  • USDA Hardiness Zone: 3-10
  • Life Cycle: Perennial
  • Approximate mature size: 6-10″ (15-25cm)
  • Bloom Time: Mid-Spring-Late Summer
  • Sun Exposure: Full Sun, Partial Sun

Some people consider this beautiful blue wildflower a weed in Montana!

Believe it or not, the Common Blue Violet can randomly start growing in the middle of your lawn. If it appears, it can attract mason bees, caterpillars, wild turkeys, rabbits, deer, doves, and ants. The ants are attracted to their seeds that are coated with protein.

Interestingly, this wildflower can self-fertilize inside the plant without opening. The seed capsules eventually turn upright, open, and SHOOT OUT their seeds as far as 9 feet away from the plant.


#7. Common Periwinkle

  • Vinca minor

common periwinkle pic

Also known as Lesser Periwinkle or Dwarf Periwinkle.

Growing Information

  • USDA Hardiness Zone: 4-9
  • Life Cycle: Perennial
  • Approximate mature size: 4-6″ (10-15cm)
  • Bloom Time: Year-Round
  • Sun Exposure: Full Sun, Partial Sun, Shade

The Common Periwinkle is not native to North America. Regardless, this perennial can attract bumblebees, Anthophorid Bees, Mason Bees, and bee flies.

This blue wildflower is often used as a ground cover in Montana. The main benefit is it’s deer resistant!


#8. Teasel

  • Dipsacus fullonum

teasel pic

Also known as Wild Teasel and Fuller’s Teasel.

Growing Information

  • USDA Hardiness Zone: 3-8
  • Life Cycle: Biennial
  • Approximate mature size: 4-6′ (120-180 cm)
  • Bloom Time: Summer, Fall
  • Sun Exposure: Full Sun to Partial Shade

Montana’s teasels are easily identified by their prickly stem and leaves and unique purplish-blue flowers.

This plant attracts some birds, such as the Goldfinches, because the seeds are an important winter food resource.

Teasel has health benefits such as a kidney tonic, which promotes the healing of broken bones and torn, injured, or inflamed connective tissue. This makes it helpful in treating Lyme disease symptoms since the Lyme-inducing bacteria often target the nerve, muscle & connective tissues.


#9. Forget-me-not

  • Myosotis scorpioides

forget me not pic

Also known as Water Forget-me-not, True Forget-me-not, Love-me, Mouse-ear, Mouse-ear Scorpion Grass, Scorpion Weed, and Snake Grass.

Growing Information

  • USDA Hardiness Zone: 5-9
  • Life Cycle: Perennial
  • Approximate mature size: 6-12″ (15-30 cm)
  • Bloom Time: Spring, Summer, Fall
  • Sun Exposure: Full Sun, Partial Sun

The Forget-me-not is also known as the Scorpion Weed. This is because it has a coiled flower stalk like a tail of a scorpion. Some have also said the common name Forget-me-not comes from this plant’s unpleasant taste or odor, which is hard to forget.

Forget-me-nots seeds spread rapidly, and you may find them sprouting up in places you didn’t plan for. Don’t worry; you can dig up the flower and replant it anywhere you want it to be, and they are not bothered by being moved. I suggest not destroying the plant because this perennial attracts butterflies, bees, and moths.


#10. Creeping Bellflower

  • Campanula rapunculoides

creeping bellflower pic

Also known as Rampion Bellflower.

Growing Information

  • USDA Hardiness Zone: 3-7
  • Life Cycle: Perennial
  • Approximate mature size: 12-31″ (30-80cm)
  • Bloom Time: Summer to Early Fall
  • Sun Exposure: Partial Shade

You will find this perennial in a variety of habitats, such as fields, dry hills, meadows, deciduous and pine forests, roadsides, and along railroads.

Creeping Bellflower is native to Europe and western Siberia, brought to Montana. Unfortunately, it has become an extremely invasive weed and chokes out other plants.

Trying to eliminate it is nearly impossible because of its ability to multiply on its own. Each plant can produce 15,000 seeds and reproduce through its long tuberous root system. 🙁


#11. Western Blue Flax

  • Linum lewisii

Western blue flax pic

Also known as Prairie Flax, Wild Flax, Lewis Flax, Lewis’s Flax, and Wild Blue Flax.

Growing Information

  • USDA Hardiness Zone: 3-9
  • Life Cycle: Perennial
  • Approximate mature size: 1-3′ (30-90 cm)
  • Bloom Time: Spring, Summer
  • Sun Exposure: Full Sun, Partial Sun

The Western Blue Flax blooms for weeks from late spring to mid-summer, but you will notice the flowers open in the morning but are gone in the afternoon. This is because the blooms only last for one day!

This blue perennial has long and tough stem fibers, and the American Indians used them for ropes, cords, fishing lines, and nets.


#12. Spiderwort

  • Tradescantia virginiana

spiderwort pic

Also known as the Virginia Spiderwort and Blue Jacket.

Growing Information

  • USDA Hardiness Zone: 4-9
  • Life Cycle: Perennial
  • Approximate mature size: 10-24″ (25-61 cm)
  • Bloom Time: Spring, Summer
  • Sun Exposure: Full Sun, Partial Sun

In Montana, you will see Spiderwort on dry to medium but well-drained soils in fields, meadows, and woodland margins.

This perennial is great for a border for flower beds and is often an underutilized garden plant.


#13. Prairie Spiderwort

  • Tradescantia occidentalis

Prairie Spiderwort pic

Also known as Western Spiderwort and Spiderwort.

Growing Information

  • USDA Hardiness Zone: 4-9
  • Life Cycle: Perennial
  • Approximate mature size: 10-24″ (25-60 cm)
  • Bloom Time: Spring, Summer
  • Sun Exposure: Full Sun, Partial Sun, Shade

This grass-like plant with exotic-looking blue flowers is found in Montana’s plains, foothills, sandy ridges, meadows, fields, and roads.

The Prairie Spiderwort blooms continuously with eye-catching blue flowers. Unfortunately, most flowers are gone by noon. Nevertheless, many native bees value this wildflower.


#14. Pasque flower

  • Pulsatilla patens

pasque flower pic

Also known as Prairie Pasqueflower, Eastern Pasque Flower, Eastern Meadow Anemone, Eastern Prairie Smoke, American Pasqueflower, Prairie Crocus, and Windflower.

Growing Information

  • USDA Hardiness Zone: All Life Zones
  • Life Cycle: Perennial
  • Approximate mature size: 4-10″ (10-25 cm)
  • Bloom Time: Early Spring
  • Sun Exposure: Full Sun

Please advise all parts of the Pasque Flower contain poisonous compounds, which can cause blisters in your nose and mouth. This is one wildflower you don’t want to sniff!

This blue-flowered perennial is found in dry soil such as prairies. It also has seed-like fruit with feathery, plume-like hairs that carry seeds away on the wind.


Do you need more help identifying blue wildflowers in Montana?

Check out this guide!


Which of these blue wildflowers have you seen before in Montana?

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