11. Myosotis L. (forget-me-not, scorpiongrass)

Plants annual or perennial herbs. Stems erect or ascending to arched or occasionally more or less spreading, solitary or few to several, unbranched or branched, variously hairy. Leaves alternate and usually also basal, the basal and lower stem leaves with a winged petiole, the median and upper stem leaves sessile. Leaf blades 1–8 cm long, 5–16 mm wide, variously shaped, variously hairy, the hairs sometimes hooked at the tip, often without noticeable lateral veins. Inflorescences sometimes paired, appearing as dense clusters at the start of flowering, then becoming elongated into usually sometimes scorpioid, spikelike racemes, these sometimes appearing aggregated into panicles, the flower stalks variously elongating or not as the fruits mature, erect to spreading, drooping, or reflexed, the lower flowers subtended by small, progressively reduced, slender bracts or the bracts few and alternating with the flowers or absent altogether. Cleistogamous flowers not produced. Calyces 5-lobed 1/3–2/3 of the way to the base, actinomorphic or zygomorphic (then somewhat 2-lipped with the 3 upper lobes shorter than the 2 lower lobes), the lobes usually elongating somewhat at fruiting, variously hairy, the hairs sometimes hooked at the tip. Corollas trumpet-shaped to funnelform or broadly trumpet-shaped to nearly saucer-shaped, blue or white, sometimes with a yellow spot in the throat or pink in bud, the throat with small, scalelike appendages, these often hairy, the lobes rounded. Stamens attached variously in the corolla tube, the filaments short, the anthers oblong to ovate, not exserted from the corolla. Ovary deeply 4-lobed, style short, either shorter than or slightly longer than the nutlets, not exserted from the corolla, the stigma capitate (sometimes minutely so), unlobed or 2-lobed. Fruits usually dividing into 4 nutlets, these more or less flattened-ovoid, the ventral side often angled slightly toward the tip, the lateral margin with a longitudinal rim or keel all the way around, attached to the flat or low mound-shaped gynobase at the base, the attachment scar relatively small, bluntly to broadly but sharply pointed at the tip, the surface smooth, brown to black, shiny. About 100 species, nearly worldwide, most diverse in temperate regions.