Baby blue eyes has always been one of my personal favorites.  It is a fairly short (to 12"), slender, spreading or straggling annual with many weak, slightly succulent, stems that are ± pubescent and often growing up among other plants.  The leaves are thin, opposite and divided into 5-13 pinnate rounded segments which may in turn be further toothed.  The leaves are somewhat hispid and the upper ones are sessile.  The flower is showy with a 5-lobed semirotate to bowl-shaped corolla that is divided 3/4 of the way to the base, pale blue with a lighter center, sometimes blue-veined and/or dark-dotted, and containing five white stamens with dark curling anthers.  Prefers most flats and slopes, often shaded places in many plant communities including coastal sage scrub, chaparral, valley grassland and oak woodland below 5000' throughout much of cismontane California.  Baby blue eyes blooms from February to June.

Click here for Latin name derivations: 1) Nemophila 2) menziesii.
Pronunciation: neh-MOF-il-a men-ZEES-ee-eye.
Click here for Botanical Term Meanings.