Veronica anagallis-aquatica

Water speedwell

Family: Plantaginaceae · Type: perennial · Not Native

Water speedwell is a naturalized perennial herb found in wet meadows and streambanks throughout California at elevations below 3,000 meters. Flowering from May to September, this plant produces lavender to blue flowers with violet lines, arranged in dense axillary racemes with over 30 flowers. Growing with decumbent stems 10 to 60 centimeters tall that root at lower nodes and branch freely from the base, it forms sprawling patches in moist environments. Its leaves are light green, sessile, elliptic to ovate, 20 to 80 millimeters long, with edges ranging from entire to slightly serrate and bases that clasp or heart-shaped. The small fruit is rounded, 2.5 to 4 millimeters wide, with tiny flat seeds less than a millimeter long.

Habitat: Wet meadows, streambanks, slow streams

Bloom period: May-Sep

Elevation: < 3000 m

Bioregions: CA (uncommon D)

California counties: Alameda, San Diego, San Bernardino, Los Angeles, Ventura, Kern, Santa Barbara, Colusa, San Luis Obispo, Orange, Tulare, Riverside, San Joaquin, Lassen, Mendocino, Inyo, Fresno, Butte, Sonoma, Santa Clara, Mariposa, Mono, Modoc, Monterey, Plumas, Siskiyou, San Benito, Sierra, Sacramento, Calaveras, Glenn, Lake, Solano, Madera, Merced, Tehama, Yuba, Shasta, Napa, Santa Cruz, Stanislaus, Humboldt, Trinity, Yolo, El Dorado

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.