9 BLUE Wildflowers Found in Nevada! (ID GUIDE)

Did you find a BLUE wildflower in Nevada?

Common Blue Wildflowers in Nevada

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 9 common BLUE wildflowers in Nevada.


#1. Heal-All

  • Prunella vulgaris

Types of Blue Wildflowers found in Nevada

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 Nevada.

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 Nevada

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 Nevada.

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 Nevada

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 Nevada. 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 Nevada 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 Nevada. 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 Nevada.

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. 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

Nevada’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.


#7. 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.


#8. 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.


#9. 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 Nevada, 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.


Do you need more help identifying blue wildflowers in Nevada?

Check out this guide!


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

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