| Author | Rafinesque | |
| Distribution | Scattered over the southern and western Piedmont and the southern half of the Mountains. Ranges east to Alamance, Randolph, Montgomery, and Anson counties. Records in RAB (1968) for the Coastal Plain have been assigned to S. capillare.
This species is a general Eastern species, ranging north to NY and WI, and south to the FL Panhandle and eastern TX. The range in the Coastal Plain from southeastern VA to southeastern GA is occupied by S. capillare. | |
| Abundance | Infrequent in the southern Piedmont and the southern Mountains. Rare to uncommon in the northwestern portion of the Piedmont. Apparently absent from the northern Mountains and the Coastal Plain. | |
| Habitat | This is a species mainly of dry soil, found in barrens, open woodlands and borders, and dry fields. It apparently shows an affinity for circumneutral soils, as reported for habitats in VA. | |
| Phenology | Blooms from March to May, and fruits in May and June. | |
| Identification | The blue-eyed-grass species are all fairly similar, so many characters are small and require close examination. This species has a rather pale green or glaucous clump of basal leaves growing to about 6 inches tall; they are linear and iris-like. The flowering stalk, up to about 10 inches tall, is broadly winged, and each wing is wider than the core of the stem. The spathe (at the base of the inflorescence) is often purple-tinged. The several flowers in each "cluster" are white to pale blue, and are about 0.6-inch wide, about the size of most other flowers in the genus. Check Weakley (2018) for additional characters. If you run into white or pale blue flowers on a Sisyrinchium in dry woods or glades and borders, especially one with winged flowering stalks, you may have this species. The very rare S. dichotomum has small white flowers and is limited to the Hickorynut Gorge area in the southeastern mountains and adjacent southern Blue Ridge Escarpment. | |
| Taxonomic Comments | Though this is a good species with no subspecies or varieties, S. capillare has been pulled from it in recent decades. S. capillare occupies the Sandhills and Coastal Plain portion of the NC range as shown on the RAB (1968) map for S. albidum.
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| Other Common Name(s) | Common Blue-eyed-grass | |
| State Rank | S3? | |
| Global Rank | G5? | |
| State Status | | |
| US Status | | |
| USACE-agcp | FAC link |
| USACE-emp | FAC link |
