Small white flowers ’

You may have noticed small white flowers used as a filler in some store bought bouquets. This flower with loose billowy panicels is called Baby’s Breath and is in the genus Gypsophila.

We have two native wildflowers blooming now in Central Texas that resemble the Baby’s Breath found in commercial bouquets. The natives have small white flowers less than a quarter of an inch in diameter with open panicles making them resemble stars in the sky.

Stenaria nigricans has many common names, including Diamondflowers, Narrowleaf Bluets, Baby’s Breath, Bluets, Fine-leaf Bluets and Prairie Bluet. Our Prairie Bluets resemble the Bluets (genus Houstonia) found in Eastern North America because it also has 4 tiny petals. However, our “Bluets” are woody based perennials and the Eastern Bluets are herbaceous annuals. The leaves of our Prairie Bluets are very fine and opposite in arrangement.

The other native wildflower with an open panicle and flowers about ¼ of an inch in diameter is White Heliotrope (Heliotropium tenellum), also known as Pasture Heliotrope. White Heliotrope flowers have five petals and thin leaves with tiny hairs that give it a graygreen appearance.

When I first noticed Prairie Bluets and White Heliotrope I thought they were the same type of plant. The open inflorescence and small white flowers found on both of them gave me the impression that they were a wild type of Baby’s Breath. However, closer examination shows that Prairie Bluet flowers have 4 petals and the White Heliotrope’s have 5 petals. The Prairie Bluet has shorter, greener leaves than the White Heliotrope leaves, which are gray-green in appearance.

I have both of these plants in my protected backyard and I never planted either one of them. They reseed readily, plant themselves in sunny areas and I never water them. I do not find them out in the yard that is accessible to the deer.

Written by Jackie Mattice, Hays County Master Naturalist