Plants with Blue or Purple Flowers
Blue and purple flowers form the smallest group within the colour sections, but there are still some important groups, including a number of spring bulbs, violets, bellflowers, forget-me-nots, speedwells and the borage family.
As well as flower colour, it is important to take careful note of the exact petal shape - are the petals rounded, or do they came to a sharp point, for example; are there gaps between the petals or do they overlap; are the flowers solitary, or arranged in spikes or bunches.
Within the colour sections, the pictures are grouped so that similar-looking (though not necessarily closely-related) plants will be near each other.
This should help to reduce your search time. To keep things concise, not all species are shown in the colour keys, so you may have to go for a 'best match' to get you through to the next stage of the identification process. Particularly in large families where there are a number of very similar species, a representative species is shown here, but clicking on it will take you to a page that tells you how to tell the more difficult species apart.
Many plants will be obviously one colour or another, obviously five petalled, or obviously a woody shrub, etcetera. But many will be debatable. In such cases, I have tried to imagine how a flower might be perceived by others, especially beginners to plant identification. Generally this results in a plant appearing in more than one place on these pages, but some still remain problematic. In particular, the section labelled 'tubular flowers' contains a variety of flowers that might be considered to fall into that category and these generally have petals that are fused together to fully surround the sexual parts of the flower. But these tubes might be elongate like a pencil, or broad and bell-like. Flowers of two colours are entered under the colour that covers most of the flower, but truly bicoloured flowers may be entered under both colours. Woody plants with green stems that might not be considered woody, are entered under their flower colour or shape, as well as under the woody plants sections.
If you still can't find your plant, you either have something very interesting that you may wish to tell me about, or I just haven't got a picture
of it yet - I'm still working on the latter!!
Click on the pictures below to go to the species pages.
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Irises
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Milkworts
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Spiderworts
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Speedwells
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Gentians
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Violet Horned Poppy
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Bacopa
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Leadworts
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Pimpernels
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Primroses
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Flaxes
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Crane's-bills
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Alkanets
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Periwinkles
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Forget-me-nots
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Love-in-a-mist
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Teaplants
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Periwinkles
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Venus's-looking-glasses
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Bellflowers
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Bellflowers
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Borage
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Forget-me-nots
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Common Cornsalad
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Buglosses
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Eyebrights
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Fairy Lobelia
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Butterworts
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Violets
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Pansies
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Gentians
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Apple-of-Peru
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Larkspurs
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Monk's-hoods
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Abraham-Isaac-Jacob
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Bittersweet
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Columbines
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Columbines
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Blue Star Creeper
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Fairy Lobelia
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Fairy Lobelia
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Common Jacob's-ladder
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Showy Isotome
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Showy Isotome
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Irises
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Bluebells
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Common Hyacinth
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Squills
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Siberian Squill
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Blue lilies
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Common
Pasqueflower
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Crocuses
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Pickerelweed
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Blue-eyed-grasses
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Anemones
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Love-in-a-mist
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Common Cornflower
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Chicory
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Passionflowers
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Knapweeds
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Columbines
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Columbines
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Asters
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Asters
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Cardoons
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Burdocks
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Crocuses
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Triplet Lily
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Gentians
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Buglosses
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Milk-vetches
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Toothworts
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Broomrapes
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Skullcaps
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Bellflowers
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Apple-of-Peru
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Morning-glories
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Morning-glories
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Mints &
Dead-nettles
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Toadflaxes &
allies
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Comfreys
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Honeyworts
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Eyebrights
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Cape Snapdragon
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Fairy Lobelia
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Everlasting-peas
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Blue claries
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Sages
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Grape-hyacinths
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African Lily
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Common Hyacinth
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Bluebells
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Grape-hyacinths
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Lupins
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Vetches
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Monk's-hoods
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Phacelias
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Buglosses
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Abraham-Isaac-Jacob
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Sea-lavenders
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Common Bugle
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Common Cornflower
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Teasels
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Eryngos
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Sheep's-bit
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Scabiouses
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Lavenders
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Toadflaxes
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Broomrapes
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Common Cornsalad
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Vervains
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Butterfly-bushes
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Speedwells
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Pickerelweed
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Statice
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Passionflowers
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Teaplants
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Rhododendrons
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Rhododendrons
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Rosemary & allies
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Lilacs
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Hebes
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Butterfly-bushes
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Lavenders
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