Veronica agrestis Fries. (incl. V. polita), wayside speedwell. Annual, taprooted, several–stemmed at base, prostrate or decumbent, much–branched, in range 3—10 cm tall; shoots with only cauline leaves and canopy = an inflorescence with leaflike bractlets, short–hairy.
Stems cylindric, to 1 mm diameter, ± tough, lower stem often pinkish to purple–red, internodes to 18 mm long, puberulent and sometimes with hairs to 1 mm long.
Leaves opposite decussate at the lowermost nodes and helically alternate leaflike bractlets, simple, petiolate to subsessile (bractlets), without stipules; petiole 2—3 mm long, somewhat flattened on upper side, lower side villous; blade ovate to broadly ovate, 5—9 × 4—11 mm, subtruncate to broadly tapered at base, crenate–serrate on margins with 2—4 teeth per edge, obtuse at tip, with 3 veins from base slightly sunken on upper surface and raised on lower surface, upper surface sparsely short–hairy with upward–pointing hairs, lower surface with hairs along veins.
Inflorescence leafy raceme, terminal, to 40 mm long, hairy like shoot; peduncle < 3 mm long; bractlet subtending pedicel similar to foliage leaves, not noticeably decreasing upward; pedicel at anthesis ascending and 3—3.5 mm long, increasing to 8 mm long and curving downward in fruit, puberulent.
Flower bisexual, bilateral, in range ca. 4 × 5 mm across; calyx 4–lobed; tube at anthesis ca. 0.5 mm long increasing slightly in fruit, with some long hairs; lobes unequal, ovate, 2—3.2 mm long (1 comparatively short) increasing to 3.9 mm long in fruit, 3–veined with principal veins slightly raised on both surfaces, entire and short–ciliate on margins, lower surface with short hairs especially along veins, upper surface with some short hairs at tip, lacking glandular hairs; corolla 4–lobed, ca. 2.5 mm long; tube ± 0.7 mm long and wide, white but yellowish and glossy between stamens, with conspicuous, colorless short hairs concealing orifice; lobes overlapping, roundish, 1.7—2 mm, violet–blue with conspicuous nectar lines, broadly attached at base, 3 lobes similar and with 7 nectar lines, the lower lobes narrower and with 5 nectar lines; stamens 2, fused to base of corolla tube; filaments sigmoidal, ± 1.2 mm long, white; anther basifixed, dithecal, 0.3 mm long, dark blue–violet, arrow–shaped at base, longitudinally dehiscent; pollen cream–colored; pistil 1; ovary superior, on stalk ca. 0.2 mm long, broadly heart–shaped compressed side–to–side, ca. 0.7 × 0.9 mm, lacking notch at tip, green, minutely glandular–hairy, 2–chambered, each chamber with 9—12 ovules; style increasing width from base to tip, 1—1.4 mm long but not increasing in fruit, whitish aging reddish; stigma capitate, whitish, entire, papillate.
Fruit capsule loculicidal and septicidal, 2–valved (rarely 1 chamber 3–valved), in range to 18–seeded, with 2 divergent, spreading lobes, broadly heart–shaped and conspicuously inflated, ca. 3.2 × 4 mm, to 2.5 mm thick (chambers often of 2 different thicknesses), brown, not keeled, shallowly notched, conspicuously glandular–hairy, not veiny; style persistent; persistent calyx lobes ascending, not strongly veiny.
Seed ovate in outline and shell–shaped, 0.9—1.4 × 0.8—0.9 mm, cream–colored, lower edge inrolled, upper faces transversely low–ridged (verrucose).
A. C. Gibson