Trying to straighten out Veronica identity

Good day all,
I collect small Veronicas, and often am avaricious enough that I acquire plants that are not fully identified/labelled.
My most recent quandary is a plant given to me as Veronca alpina. Its leaves look exactly like a plant I bought in Denver labelled as V. alpina alba, whose pictures are more consistent on the internet. This seems fine and all, but descriptions and pictures of the wild V. alpina look nothing like my plant. These pictures have rounder more glossy leaves, and a completely different inflorescence.

http://www.floraislands.is/HAPL/veronalp1b.jpg
http://linnaeus.nrm.se/botany/fbo/v/veron/veroalp.html.en
http://www.floracyberia.net/spermatophyta/angiospermae/dicotyledoneae/scrophulariaceae/veronica_alpina.html

My plant:

Here is my plant's flowers in detail.
Do I have a miniature V. spicata?

Thanks for looking,
K. James

Well, I agree with you - your plant looks nothing like the Veronica alpina that occur in the mountains here (as corroborated by several of my books), which look very similar to those in the links you attached.
If the leaves on your other plant are the same, I'd say it's not V. alpina either (and, as you probably know, the descriptor "alba" just means it's a white-flowered form, and does not imply that the leaves should be significantly different from the species).
I see what you mean about googling V. alpina 'alba'... Bluestone Perennials (is that a reasonably reputable American greenhouse?) has something labelled as such that is clearly not. Oh well, the internet is a great source of information, but there is a lot of misinformation too!





This message was edited Aug 31, 2007 10:31 PM

and... googling further, I see that "V. alpina" seems to be very commonly used for something that isn't, by a GREAT number of plant sellers... presumably, Linnaeus has been spinning in his grave for some time!

With rare exceptions, veronicas seem to be one of those genera I haven't paid a great deal of attention to (yet have managed to collect various representatives of, LOL!)... with that disclaimer, I wonder if your plant might be V. austriaca (from the leaf shape)?

Yikes; austriaca, as a species, is all mixed up in mainstream nomenclature, too!
(it is mixed up with prostrata). It is my understanding that austiraca is a taller clumping plant with wider flowers, not creeping. But as the world seems to have turned upside down on Veronicas, I shall look further into it.

V. alpina is often given as a synonym for some cultivars of V. spicata, even in plantfiles.
Thanks for looking, Altagardener, in your books and all. I have grown many different genera, and none are even near as mislabelled nor confused as Veronica!
(Bluestone Perennials is a reputable American mailorder as far as material quality, but bad about name accuracy- not just the Veronica, as I recall.)

I think you are quite right about one thing, that both specimens are not alpina at all.

I just happened to be looking over a groundcover catalogue, and saw the picture of Veronica allionii.
http://images.google.com/images?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GFRC,GFRC:2006-50,GFRC:en&q=veronica+allionii&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi
But I had not even considered allioni because of the sample I saw in Vail:
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/showimage/138391/

Anytime one really thinks he has his finger on Veronicas, there is doubt...

Double yikes! My "Veronica alpina" I grew from NARGS seed looks like it could be your Vail pic, James. Clearly NOT any of the other pics or links on this thread. Todd, Ally or anyone: why didn't you correct my name when I posted this pic this past spring?

So any suggestions?

James, care to list the species you have?
I haveVeronica:
alpina?
armena
gentianoides
liwanensis
oltensis
pectinata
rupestris 'Heavenly Blue'
'Waterperry'

JamesCO, you say V. alpina is misnamed "even in PlantFiles".... Hmmm, seeing that "Any registered user may add new plants, images, details, comments..." (italics added for emphasis) to PlantFiles, I'm not sure I'd expect it to be among the most infallible of sources... unless perhaps the "Uber"-folks are responsible for verifying plant IDs? Is that the case?

Hey, can the rest of us kids play at this too? ;-) I have (or should I say I think I have?):
V. allionii
gentianoides
incana (or V. spicata ssp. incana?), also 'Silbersee'
liwanensis
longifolia
pectinata
prostrata
repens
spicata
schmidtiana
thymoides
whitleyi
'Reavis' (V. liwanensis x pectinata?)
peduncularis 'Waterperry Blue'
But what do I really have then, I wonder?

After looking around a bit, I have not stumbled across any publication dealing specifically with veronicas, nor any plant societies that are dedicated to the genus. Can anyone suggest authoritative sources of info on veronicas?

This message was edited Sep 1, 2007 4:59 PM

It seemed to me that closer attention was being paid of late to the accuracy of plantfiles, but it will always be wonderfully and unfortunately open database.

I have read that there used to be an authority (on the internet) on Veronica. I'll try to find where I read that reference. Alas, it doesn't seem to exist any longer. I wish it did.

The pictures I took at the Betty Ford Alpine Gardens are as suspect as any taken in botanical gardens- having worked for one and seen plenty of mistaggings in others; I know that sometimes tags are only as accurate as the vendor, or worse yet, a guess from a too-small index of plants.

At this point, I have no better a collection than anyone can without an actual rockery:

whatsitii- the plant in question.
whatsitii ‘Alba’
prostrata 'Trehane'
filiformis (sold as the latter, but small white flowers could mean it’s V. cymbalaria)
‘Georgia Blue’
liwanensis
‘New Century’
oltensis
pectinata
repens
‘Waterperry Blue’
surculosa? (I’ll know when it blooms)

I have been too lazy to compare 'Reavis' with 'New Century,' scientifically as they are both hybrids of pectinata and liwanensis, and, of course, could be the same thing. Whatever the case, I think they are great candidates to replace lawns.

Altagardener, does your V. allionii look like the picture from Rob's plants:
http://www.robsplants.com/plants/VeronAllio.php
or here:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.wanderweb.ch/bilder/flora/veronica-allionii1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.wanderweb.ch/texte/flora-vallemaira.html&h=184&w=285&sz=34&hl=en&start=12&um=1&tbnid=b2r7KpeI_xf93M:&tbnh=87&tbnw=134&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dveronica%2Ballionii%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1T4GGIH_enUS206US206

I can't go to my grave not sorting this out. But getting there may send me to the asylum.
JamesCO

JamesCO:
I'd say my V. allionii (or what I bought as such) does very closely resemble that at "robsplants". The photo at the German(?) site appears to have the same leaf shape, but differs in having a very congested flower head, and interrupted spacing of leaves along the stem - I haven't seen that on nursery plants, so far. Unfortunately, I don't speak the language; is it a photo from the wild?
Here's a pic of mine; leaves are ~3/4" max; height to top of flower spikes is 4-5".


Yes, wouldn't a rockery be great? I'm working on one (planning stage), but not there yet!

I assume it is a wild photo, as it's somewhat a wildflower/ecology page. It says that it is a common plant that starts by spreading, then mounding, that it is named, like many things in the SW alps, for this chap: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlo_Allioni

Thanks for your picture. I think I shall continue to collect the silly things and wait for an authority on them to appear.

The reference to an authority I had read was here:
http://www.paghat.com/veronica.html
but unfortunately, Mr. Albach's website, "speedwell.de" no longer exists.
I may e-mail the address given on a different site for him.

And to add to the list of Veronicas I have, I recently collected V. americana on a recent hike.

Did you try the Way Back Machine?
http://www.archive.org/web/web.php

Thank you, it didn't have any online encyclopedic information, but information to perhaps contact him.

If not allionii, it may be stelleri...we have one in our collection at the Botanical garden that looks much like your plant James.

I've seen the real alpina in the Rockies....nothing like yours. V. wormskjoldii is the now accepted name for V. alpina.

Leftwood, I don't recall your previously posted veronica pic. I apologize. Your Veronica is certainly not the one photographed at Betty Ford Alpine Garden. Neither does yours look like alpina, as that species has more pointed petals. I'll do some searching and see if I can find out which one you have.

When you have time (haha) Todd, that would be great. Of course it has grown more this season, multiple stems and more leaves, but there is no change in form.

Nice to see you back.

Can you post an update...with more foliage I may be able to ID it...from you original pic, I'm stumped!

Sure Todd. But I'm still in the dark ages with a film camera, so it will be a while.

I guess there is an outside chance that this info might help:
there was only one seed donor for this NARGS lot:
Josef Schindler, Ostrava-MH Czech Republic
Seed was garden collected, not wild.

Hmmm..I suspect it may be a Czech native even if it was garden collected. They have all sorts of native Veronica in that part of the world.

JamesCO,
You were wondering if you had a miniature Veronica spicata...
Here's an old NARGS Plant-of-the-Month, Veronica spicata nana - http://www.nargs.org/potm/potm_aug99.html

An updated pic of my not Veronica alpina. (I never said I was an expert grower.)

This is the one that came from NARGS seed, Josef Schindler, Ostrava-MH Czech Republic, garden collected.

And the previous pic of not Veronica alpina.

A beautiful little plant.
Thanks for your help, Mr. Boland.
And thanks for the V. spicata nana link, AltaG.

Still have not found any matches.....this one is proving to be a stinker for ID!

I was just at Denver Botanic gardens and saw how wildly different some of their specimens of Veronica pectinata are.
What I have in my garden is the form with clear cobalt-blue flowers and fairly dissected leaves.

little dissection of the leaves here:

And look at the flower on this chap:

For comparison, this is the one I keep.