VERONICA PERSICA

Family and Genus:- See- PLANTAGINACEAE/Sect. POCILLA

Common Names:- Common field speedwell

Homotypic Synonyms:- Veronica agrestis var. byzantiaca

Meaning:- Veronica (L) For Saint Veronica, who wiped the sweat from Christ's

face.

Persica (L) Persian.

General description:- Low to short, glandular-hairy, erect annual, often branched

from the base.

Stems:-

1) (5)10-60 cm, procumbent.

Leaves:-

1) 5-25 mm, shortly petiolate, broadly ovate with a more or less truncate base,

mostly alternate but the lowest opposite, entire or with slightly rounded teeth,

slightly hairy or almost hairless.

Flowers:-

1) Solitary in the leaf-axils.

2) Pedicels, 5-30 mm, recurved in fruit and much exceeding the subtending leaf.

3) Calyx-segments, (4-)6-7 mm, ovate-lanceolate, not or only slightly overlapping at

the base.

4) Corolla, 8-12 mm diam, blue.

5) Style, 2·5-3 mm, much exceeding the sinus.

Fruit:-

1) Capsule, 4-5 x 7-10 mm, 2-lobed, with very divergent lobes and wide, shallow

sinus, strongly keeled, with eglandular hairs on the sides and long glandular

hairs on the keel.

2) Seeds, c. 1·75 x 1·25 mm, broadly elliptical, concave on one face.

Key features:-

1) Leaves, crenate or serrate.

2) Seeds, less than 2 mm.

3) Capsule, keeled, with divergent lobes.

4) Corolla, 8-12 mm diam.

Click here for a glossary of terms used.

Habitat:- Orchards, fallow fields, ruderal habitats, woodland margins. 0-800 m.

sometimes to 1900 m. along mountain roads and tracks.

Distribution:- Throughout Greece. - Probably native to Caucasia and N Iran. Now

almost a cosmopolitan weed. Not too common on Crete mainly in the west and

Dikti mountains in the east.

Flowering time:- Mar-May, occasionally later.

Photos by:- Steve Lenton