Just take your hand lens to this little wildflower and spend a few moments enjoying its beauty. It's a short perennial – only standing 20cm high – which grows on bare and cultivated land, including lawns. It sprawls along the ground sending up loose spikes of pale blue flowers (5-6mm across) on erect stems. The flowers are comprised of four joined uneven petals and there are four sepals. Its so-called oval-shaped Thyme-like leaves are small, shiny and untoothed, tapering at the base into very short stalks. This plant blooms from April to October and is widespread. A native plant it belongs to the family Plantaginaceae.
My first record of this plant is in Gibletstown, Co Wexford in 2005 and I photographed it there in 2006.
If you are satisfied you have correctly identified this plant, please submit your sighting to the National Biodiversity Data Centre
