Consider-the-Lilies Web Gallery
Speedwell
Bring orchis*, bring the foxglove spire,
The little speedwell’s darling blue,
Deep tulips dash’d with fiery dew,
Laburnums, dropping-wells of fire ...
Alfred Lord Tennyson
The "little speedwell’s darling blue" crossed the Atlantic to North America with the first settlers from Europe, where it has long been valued as a medicinal herb.
Speedwell, in its several varieties, has made itself at home in this continent, flourishing in infertile or recently disturbed ground.
In this image of my neglected lawn, the first blooms of the Thyme-leaved variety has appeared to beautify an otherwise not very pretty area.
Although tiny, this hardy flowering herb produces such a multitude of flowers, that, together, they give the effect of a patterned blue and white carpet laid across the relatively bare ground. It is certainly an improvement to my patch of green!
Pretty at a distance, but it is when we move a little closer—consider—that we can truly appreciate the delicate beauty of these miniature blue and white lilies.
Here is the Thyme-leaved Speedwell "up close and personal."
These micro-blossoms are worth a closer look. Don't you agree?
The Corn variety, which is the other type of Speedwell in the the Gallery, displays a deeper blue blossom. It is the earlier of the two types, first appearing in January.
I have seen it growing and blossoming in early February, when overnight temperatures dropped into the teens. Even after an accumulation of light snow I found it still displaying its elfin flowers!
Another apparently fragile early bloomer, Spring Beauty, was also unaffected by these frigid conditions.
The Speedwell family is assigned to the genus Veronica, a large and varied group, including a number of garden plants, such as Joseph's Coat (V. longifolia), popular in the home garden for its multi-colored foliage.
I found the following charming explanation of the origin of the genus name in a work by Victorian naturalist, Neltje Blanchan Doubleday:
"An ancient tradition of the Roman Church relates that when Jesus was on His way to Calvary, He passed the home of a certain Jewish maiden, who, when she saw drops of agony on His brow, ran after Him along the road to wipe His face with her kerchief.
This linen, the monks declared, ever after bore the impress of the sacred features—vera iconica, the true likeness. When the Church wished to canonize the pitying maiden, an abbreviated form of the Latin words was given her, St. Veronica, and her kerchief became one of the most precious relics at St. Peter's, where it is said to be still preserved. Medieval flower lovers...named this little flower from a fancied resemblance to the relic...[and] special healing virtue was attributed to the ... common, wayside plant that bore the saint's name."
The reputation for healing in folk medicine and the "fancied resemblance to the relic" was carried over to the common name, Speedwell, applied to the plants in Great Britain and then North America: "speedwell" or that which "quickly makes well.”
The Corn prefix for the common name of this variety originated in Great Britain hundreds of years ago.
Those who sought the plants for use in herbal medicine would find them flourishing in the disturbed soils of plowed British cornfields, thus the name.
The derivation of Thyme–leaved S.'s name is simply an allusion to the similarity of its foliage to that of Thyme.
This is reflected in the common name, as well as in its botanical suffix, serpyllifolia, or "thyme-like leaves."
Comparing the foliage of the two types, one can see the Corn S. foliage (left) is broader and flatter, as is the case with some other common ground-cover plants; for example, Gill-over-the-ground.
Given time both types can display their blossoms six- to eight-inches above the ground. But in my so-called lawn I find them flourishing at less than one inch, just below the whirling blade of my mower—and I'm glad because otherwise I probably would have decapitated them and missed these tiny "lilies!"
I don't plan any medicinal use of these plants, but I'm thankful these harbingers of spring have survived the move to this continent, so that we might "consider" and enjoy these tiny blue jewels hidden in my lawn.
*A wildflower in the Orchid family, "found mainly in woods and hedgebanks from mid spring to early summer in Great Britain," thus the reference by the poet. There is a hardy North American member of the family, the Showy Orchis (Orchis spectabilis), which I hope to photograph someday.
Go to the Main Directory to consider more lilies of the field.