Photographed October 10.Photographed October 10.Family Boraginaceae (Forget-Me-Not family).
This is a miniature version of the common Forget-Me-Not (M. scorpioides), very similar except for the size. It is normally found near streams, but it seems to be more and more common in the city. The plant above was happy by a city sidewalk in Beechview, on the shady north side of a house near the exit of a drainpipe. Here we see it much enlarged; for a sense of scale, note the chain-link fence in the background.
The plants below were blooming in Seldom Seen near the Seldom Seen Arch.
Photographed June 13.Gray describes the genus and the species:
MYOSOTIS [Rupp.] L. SCORPION-GRASS. FORGET-ME-NOT
Corolla-tube about the length of the 6-toothed or
5-cleft calyx, the throat with 5 small and blunt
arching appendages opposite the rounded lobes; the
latter convolute in the bud! Stamens included, on very
short filaments. Nutlets compressed. Low and mostly
soft-hairy herbs, with entire leaves, those of the
stem sessile, and with small flowers in naked racemes,
which are entirely bractless, or occasionally with
small leaves next the base, prolonged and straightened
in fruit. (Name composed of myos, mouse, and os, ear,
from the short and soft leaves in some species.)
M. laxa Lehm. Perennial from filiform
subterranean shoots; stems very slender, decumbent;
pubescence all appressed; leaves lanceolate-oblong or
somewhat spatulate; calyx-lobes as long as the tube;
limb of corolla rarely 5 mm. broad, paler blue. In
water and wet ground, Nfd. to Ont., and southw.
May-Aug. (Eu.)
Photographed June 13.