Description
Key Characters:
Growth Form:
Biennial, short-lived perennial, or rarely annual herbs.
Stems:
Stems ascending or occasionally erect, slender, 6–60 cm long, glabrous.
Roots:
Leaves:
Leaves simple.
Alternate.
Blades linear to linear–lanceolate, 6–12 mm long, 0.5–1.6 mm wide.
Apex acuminate.
Surfaces glabrous.
Margins entire.
1–3-veined.
Sessile.
Flowers:
Flowers in helicoid cymes.
Flowers bisexual (perfect), actinomorphic.
Sepals subequal, narrowly ovate, 4–5.5 mm long, midvein raised, margins of inner sepals scarious and somewhat ciliate, margins of outer sepals entire, apex acuminate.
Petals blue, obovate, 8–14 mm long, distinct.
Stamens connate at base; anthers dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits.
Ovary superior, flowers homostylous; placentation axile; ovules 2 per carpel, pendulous, anatropous; stigmas terminal and linear.
Fruit:
Capsules subglobose; 4–6 mm long; with an apical beak ca. 1 mm long.
Seeds flat.
Ploidy:
2n = 30–32
Habitat:
Apparently sparingly naturalized in meadows.
Elevation Range:
ca. 1,280 m.