Veronica verna L.
spring speedwell
Erect annual; stems branched or simple, 1-15 cm tall, densely covered with short curly hairs. Lvs sessile or very shortly petiolate, 2-8-(13) × 1-3-(7) mm; apex obtuse to rounded; lowermost lvs entire or sparingly toothed; upper lvs pinnatifid to pinnatisect, the 3-7 lobes obovate to oblong. Infl. a terminal raceme with fls extending almost to base of plant, glandular-hairy, usually densely so; pedicels very short, much < bracts. Bracts narrow-oblong or elliptic, mostly 3-lobed but the uppermost simple, smaller than lvs. Fls very shortly pedicellate, > bracts, crowded. Calyx c. 2-3 mm long, 4 mm long at fruiting; lobes lanceolate to narrow-elliptic, obtuse or subacute. Corolla c. 2 mm diam., < calyx, deep blue. Capsule 3-4 mm wide, densely glandular-hairy all over; lobes obcordate; nerves slightly raised. Seed oblong-ellipsoid, strongly flattened.
S.: Marlborough, Canterbury, Otago.
Temperate Eurasia, N. Africa 1940
Often very common, particularly in dry and stony habitats, such as poor, open pastures, roadsides, river banks and sometimes arable land, to c. 1000 m.
FL Sep-Dec.
Spring speedwell is an ephemeral plant and under extremely dry conditions can flower and set seed when only c. 1 cm high, and without developing the characteristic pinnatifid lvs which distinguish it best from its relative V. arvensis. Such reduced plants are likely to be found at higher altitudes. Allan (1940) recorded the sp. from Fairlie in S. Canterbury and implied that it had died out.
