Figure 1 – The asiatic dayflower, Salem, MA, August 17, 2020. (c) DE Wolf 2020.

I was headed out on my morning walk today when I discovered this charmingly tiny (less than 3/4 “) and vividly blue flower of Figure 1, single flower on the stalk. It looked ever so much like an orchid, which in fact, it is not! I took the image and immediately fed it into the PlantNet app on my phone to discover that it is an Asiatic Dayflower (Commelina communis). 

The story, I think, gets interesting from there. In the Northeast it is an invasive weed – despite being pretty. The reason that it is call a dayflower is that it blooms for a single day a year – so for this little guy/girl August 17, 2020. The wikipedia tells us all sorts of interesting things about this diminutive azure flower. First, Linnaeus described the species in the first edition of his landmark work, Species Plantarum, in 1753. Second, it can bioaccumulate a number of metals, which makes it a good candidate for revegetating and clean-scrubbing spoiled copper mines. Third, in China it is used as a medicinal herb with febrifugal, antipyretic, anti-inflammatory, and diuretic effects. And, finally, in Japan there is a dye industry associated with this plant, The colorant is known to have been used by famous Ukiyo-e artists such as Torii Kiyonaga. 

For me however, it was a simple matter of enjoying the royal beauty of this miniature single-day blooming flower. Perhaps its ephemeral nature is symbolic of the finite nature of human life and how it is to be enjoyed, especially in the seeking of beauty and wonder in nature.