Myosotis spatulata

Detailed description

Mostly decumbent, widely spreading, perennial herb with adventitious roots on lateral branches; these often present to apices unless laterals are ascending. Petioles slender, 10-15 x 1-2 mm wide, purple-black to green, finely to conspicuously hispid to silky hairy. Rosette leaves 15-40 x 5-20 mm, dark green to yellow-green, sometimes with purple-red margins, orbicular, broadly ovate to broadly elliptic, apex retuse, mucronate, mucro 0.1-0.3 mm long; hairs on upper lamina surface short to long, straight, more or less appressed, not crowded, on lower surface similar but erect. Lateral branches 50-600 mm long, usually decumbent, sometimes scending at apices, often heavily branched, sometimes bearing subsidiary rosettes subtending flowers; frequently rooting at leaf junctions; internodes equal to or greater than leaves; cauline leaves shortly petiolate, 5-20 x 5-20 mm, orbicular to broadly elliptic, hairs as for rosette-leaves. Flowers solitary in leaf axils, sometimes up to 15 in sequence along lateral branchlets, pedicels 0.5-6 mm long in fruit. Calyx 1-3 mm, lobed almost to base, lobes narrow, acute, spreading widely in fruit; hairs spreading, scattered over lobes and base, of varying sizes, the largest more or less hooked. Corolla white 1-4 mm diameter, tube cylindric, lobes spreading to patent, never flat; filaments fixed at level of scales, anthers position 1/2 up lobes, anthers < 1 mm long, yellow; style up to 3 mm long; stigma clavate. Nutlet 1-1.5 x 0.6-1 mm, black to grey-black, ovate, apex obtuse, base rounded.