Woodland forget-me-not (Myosotis sylvatica)

Common Names: Garden forget-me-not

Description: Introduced to North America as a garden plant used as flowering ground cover or as a border plant.

Habit: Erect; perennial; 10 in tall forb; fuzzy.

Leaves: Petiolate basal leaves oblanceolate to elliptic, up to 13 cm long and 13 mm wide, cauline leaves several, smaller, up to 6 cm long, sessile, oblong to lance-elliptic.

Stems: Several; erect.

Flowers: Blue to white with a yellow center, 5-parted, 1/4-1/3 in wide, calyx with hooked hairs, lobes much longer than the tube, inflorescence a terminal, leafless, curving, branched cluster (cyme); blooms April through September.

Fruit and seeds: Smooth, shiny black nutlets (4) on spreading stalks.

Habitat: Native to Europe and Asia. Found in sun, shade; moist; garden escape.

Reproduction: By seed and vegetatively.

Similar species: Bay forget-me-not (Myosotis laxa), which can be distinguished by its upright form and aquatic habitat.

Monitoring and rapid response: Hand-pulling for small infestations.

Credits: The information provided in this factsheet was gathered from the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, Robert W. Freckmann Herbarium, USDA PLANTS Database and the University of Wisconsin - Green Bay.

Individual species images that appear with a number in a black box are courtesy of the Bugwood.org network (http://www.invasive.org).Individual photo author credits may not be included due to the small display size of the images and subsequent difficulty of reading the provided text. All other images appear courtesy of Google (http://images.google.com).

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