Veronica persica, Poiret

Tutin, T. G., Heywood, V. H., Burges, N. A., Moore, D. M., Valentine, D. H., Walters, S. M. & Webb, D. A., 1972, Flora Europaea. Volume 3. Diapensiacea to Myoporaceae, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press : 250

55. V. persica Poiret in Lam., Encycl. Méth. Bot. 8: 542 (1808)

( V. tournefortii C. C. Gmelin pro parte, non Vili.).

Pubescent. Stems (5)10-60 cm, procumbent. Leaves 5-25 mm, shortly petiolate, broadly ovate with more or less truncate base, mostly alternate but the lowest opposite. Flowers solitary in leaf-axils; pedicels 5-30 mm, recurved in fruit and much exceeding the subtending leaf. Calyx-segments (4—)6-7 mm, ovate-lanceolate, not or only slightly overlapping at base; corolla 8-12 mm in diameter, blue. Capsule 4-5 x 7-10 mm, 2-lobed, with very divergent lobes and wide, shallow sinus, strongly keeled, with eglandular hairs on sides and long glandular hairs on keel; style 2-5-3 mm, much exceeding the sinus. Seeds c. 1-75x 1-25 mm, broadly elliptical, concave on one face. 2« = 28. Cultivated ground. Naturalized almost throughout Europe. [All except Fa Rs (N) Sb.] (S.W. Asia.)

First recorded in Europe c. 1800; now in many regions the most abundant annual weed in the genus.