plant ID help please - Bluestar

what i know: it’s perennial (in at least its third year in it’s present location - but we didn’t plant it there and were here several years before it appeared). it’s doing perfectly well in mostly shade - directly under a red maple, and getting just a couple hours of very late-day sun. the color’s not real great in the pic, the flowers are a very pale blue. ideas?

maybe a wild hyacinth?

We see them on hikes in shady places along the Buffalo River.

I'll see if I can find my photos.

Now I'm not so sure as the leaves are not like yours?

Is it some kind of willowherb?  The leaves look kind of similar. Can you tell if it rhisomous or a bulb type rootstock?

it’s not wild hyacinth, you’re right, the leaves aren’t right - and this keeps its leaves until freeze.

nancy, if we haven’t figured it out by the time it goes dormant again, i’ll check the roots. it’s somewhat like willowherb, but it has 5-petaled flowers and willowherb seems to have 4 petals.

edit - i just realized how ridiculous the original photo is without specifying which plant i’m talking about. it’s the flowering one, with simple leaves. it’s not the hostas, the violets, or the sochan (cutleaf Rudbeckia coneflower with big leaves by the base of the question plant), or the jewelweed.

i think i figured it out. i did a search that i’ve probably done 10 times, but this time came up with a picture. Bluestar, Amsonia tabernaemontana. looks like an expensive perennial (seeing prices of $15-32 for a single plant in a quart pot? maybe i should be dividing it...) I don’t know if it was there but just struggling enough that i didn’t notice it for the first 3 years we were here or what. pictures make it seem that it’s usually a many-stemmed cluster, i guess the two stems every year are what happens in the shade. i suppose when it dies back in the fall i’ll dig it up, divide it and get it somewhere with a bit more light. thanks for looking, folks!

Eastern Bluestar (Amsonia tabernaemontana)