11. Veronica polita Fr. (wayside speedwell)

Pl. 491 k–m; Map 2242

Plants annual, with fibrous roots or slender taproots. Stems 5–20(–30) cm long, the branches and tips sometimes loosely ascending, the main stems mostly prostrate (often rooting at the lower nodes), sparsely to moderately pubescent with spreading or curved, nonglandular hairs. Leaves mostly short-petiolate, the uppermost foliage leaves sometimes sessile or nearly so. Leaf blades 0.4–1.0(–2.0) cm long, 0.8–1.5 times as long as wide, ovate or broadly ovate to depressed-ovate or nearly circular, mostly broadest below the midpoint, rounded or broadly and bluntly to occasionally sharply pointed at the tip, broadly rounded to truncate or shallowly cordate at the base, mostly not clasping the stems, the margins unlobed, flat, coarsely and bluntly to sharply toothed, the surfaces sparsely to moderately pubescent with mostly nonglandular hairs. Inflorescences terminal, elongate, open, spikelike racemes, but (because the bracts are unreduced and the inflorescence frequently extends nearly to the stem base) appearing as flowers solitary in the leaf axils, with 4–12(–20) flowers, the axis visible between the flowers, the bracts 3–10 mm long, similar to the adjacent foliage leaves and somewhat reduced only toward the axis tip, ovate to broadly ovate or nearly circular. Flower stalks 4–10 mm long at flowering (to 15 mm at fruiting), longer than the calyces, more or less spreading or loosely upcurved to loosely ascending at flowering and fruiting. Calyces 3–6 mm long, the lobes subequal, deeply 4-lobed, the lobes broadly lanceolate, to ovate or rarely broadly oblanceolate to obovate, pubescent with short, curved, nonglandular hairs. Corollas 4–8 mm wide (3–5 mm long), blue with darker veins, the lower lobe occasionally paler, the throat white, often light greenish at the center, the tube appearing relatively broad, wider than long, the lobes spreading to shallowly cupped. Style 0.8–1.5 mm long at fruiting. Fruits 2.5–4.0 mm long, noticeably wider than long, broadly heart-shaped in profile, flattened, the notch relatively broad and deep (0.8–1.3 mm), the surfaces moderately to densely pubescent with a mixture of longer, glandular and shorter, nonglandular hairs, dehiscing along the sutures into 2 valves. Seeds mostly 6–12 per locule, 1.3–1.7 mm long, cup-shaped (deeply concave on one side, convex on the other), the convex surface appearing cross-wrinkled, tan to yellowish brown. 2n=14. March–June, rarely also November–December.

Introduced, scattered south of the Missouri River, uncommon farther north (native of Europe, Asia; introduced nearly worldwide). Bottomland forests, banks of streams and rivers; also lawns, cemeteries, gardens, barnyards, ditches, roadsides, and open, disturbed areas.

Missouri collectors should keep watch for the closely related V. agrestis L. (field speedwell), another weedy Eurasian species that has become introduced in temperate North America. It differs from V. polita in its larger (4–6 mm long), sparsely glandular-hairy fruits that are more narrowly and deeply notched at the tip, and in its white to partially pink or pale blue corollas. In addition, V. agrestis is a tetraploid (2n=28) taxon (Albach et al., 2008). The introduced North American range of this species has become confused because some floristic manuals have treated it as a synonym of the widespread V. polita (Holmgren, 1986). According to Gleason and Cronquist (1991), V. agrestis has become established in the northeastern United States and adjacent Canada west to Pennsylvania and Michigan.