Species

Veronica arvensis

Etymology

Veronica: Named after Saint Veronica, who gave Jesus her veil to wipe his brow as he carried the cross through Jerusalem, perhaps because the common name of this plant is 'speedwell'. The name Veronica is often believed to derive from the Latin vera 'truth' and iconica 'image', but it is actually derived from the Macedonian name Berenice which means 'bearer of victory'.
arvensis: Growing in arable fields

Common Name(s)

field speedwell, corn speedwell

Family

Plantaginaceae

Flora Category

Vascular - Exotic

NVS Species Code

VERARV

The National Vegetation Survey (NVS) Databank is a physical archive and electronic databank containing records of over 94,000 vegetation survey plots - including data from over 19,000 permanent plots. NVS maintains a standard set of species code abbreviations that correspond to standard scientific plant names from the Ngä Tipu o Aotearoa - New Zealand Plants database.

Structural Class

Dicotyledonous Herbs other than Composites

Habitat

Open rocky area, waste ground, cultivated areas, fields, pastures, lawns, roadsides and rail corridors.

Features

Stems erect, decumbent, or sprawling, multiple from fibrous roots, to +/-15cm tall, herbaceous, hollow, villous. Leaves are opposite, petiolate below, sessile above, broadly ovate to triangular above, to +/-1cm long, 1cm broad, crenate-serrate, pubescent. Inflorescence produced on a terminal bracteate raceme to +/-5cm long. Bracts foliaceous and giving the flowers a single axillary look. Flowers sessile or on petioles to -1mm long. Corolla deep blue-purple, to 5mm broad. Petals 4, united at the base to form a short tube to .5mm long. Lobes of the corolla rounded. Stamens 2, erect, adnate at the base of the corolla tube. Filaments whitish, glabrous, to 1mm long. Anthers bluish and white, .3-.4mm long. Ovary superior, green, orbicular, compressed, pubescent on the margins, .5mm in diameter. Style whitish-green, -1mm long and glabrous. Calyx accrescent, deeply 4-lobed, glandular and simple hispid. Lobes oblong, typically unequal, green, rounded to subacute, to 2mm in flower (much longer in fruit). Calyx tube short, -1mm long.

Flower Colours

Blue,Violet / Purple

Year Naturalised

1864

Origin

Temperate Eurasia, N. Africa, Micronesia

This page last updated on 18 Jan 2010