Nemophila in the Food Garden I've only spent an hour trying to figure out Nemophila names, but the naming of these plants seems really messed up. The only one that seems clear is that this is Nemophila maculata, and that name is listed in Garden Explorer, giving a common name of five spot. There was even a label for this. I looked up this one below on Plant@Net and was very surprised to see it also come up as Nemophila maculata, particularly since I didn't recognize it as Nemophila at all. And the confirming photos it shows are all with five spot flowers. I had even thought that there would be a different name for the two with dark purple flowers in the third photo, with one at the back having a wider white edge. I assume that the white-looking flowers mixed in with those two is the baby blue eyes, on Garden Explorer as Nemophila menziesii. Those are the only two species of Nemophila on Garden Explorer. I can't remember now what I did next, but I have come up with names for the ones just above: Nemophila maculata Nemophila maculata - spotted hain flower (really, one site showed this and called it "spotted") Nemophila menziesii 'Discoidalis' - that's RHS. Nemophila menziesii 'Penny Black'. One page, under this name, says "Baby Black Eyes" (with the double quotes) Nemophila discoidalis Nemophila discoidalis Penny Black NEMOPHILA MENZIESII VAR. DISCOIDALIS 'PENNIE BLACK' One site shows baby blue eyes as Nemophila insignis. Penny Black Nemophila Review | Alvar Florist, which gives the botanical name as Nemophila discoidalis, says: I see that that the "discoidalis" name it uses is not in the list. Kew, at Nemophila menziesii var. menziesii | Plants of the World Online | Kew Science does help by listing 32 synonyms for Nemophila menziesii var. menziesii. So the ultimate question is, now that I've spent another hour writing this: the second group, that might be the cultivar 'Penny Black' or might have the common name of penny black, are they N. maculata or N. menziesii? And the next questions are: is "penny black" a common name or a cultivar name? And does it apply to the flowers with the thin white margin and also to the ones with the larger white margin?
Thank you for the Jepson eFlora link. It looks like I have to wait to see if the seeds are 2. Seeds smooth or pitted; corolla with or without purple spot at lobe tips. If so, then could be N. maculata! Else 3' Seeds wrinkled and tubercled; corolla without purple spot at lobe tips ..... N. menziesii I guess there are other seed options? That would take me farther down the list.
