Veronica cusickii
Cusick's speedwell
Family: Plantaginaceae · Type: perennial · Native
Conservation status: CNPS 4.3
Cusick's speedwell is a California native perennial found in the northern Sierra Nevada Mountains and Cascade Range in forest openings and meadows at elevations of 1,800 to 3,000 meters. Flowering from July to August, this plant produces deep blue flowers approximately 10 to 13 millimeters long with delicate, glandular-hairy pedicels. Growing with ascending, branched stems 10 to 15 centimeters tall, it spreads through slender rhizomes and features a distinctively glandular-hairy growth habit. Its leaves are sessile, elliptic to ovate, 5 to 25 millimeters long, generally glabrous with entire margins and acute to obtuse tips. The fruit is 5 to 6 millimeters long, slightly longer than wide, and deeply notched with glandular hairs.
Habitat: Forest openings, meadows
Bloom period: Jul-Aug
Elevation: 1800-3000 m
Bioregions: CaR, n&c SNH
California counties: Alpine, Madera, Lassen, Placer, Sierra, Siskiyou, El Dorado, Amador, Tuolumne
Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.