Photos: Macroom and Inishannon, Co. Cork

Crested Field-speedwell Veronica crista-galli Lus cré mór Family: Scrophulariaceae Annual. Introduced. Solitary dark-blue flowers with white centres in the leaf-axils are followed by distinctive fruit with calyx-segments fused in bi-lobed pairs enclosing the smaller seed capsules. Locally abundant in Co. Cork and established and increasing in south and south-west Ireland on roadsides, waste ground, cultivated ground and in woodland. First recorded in Cork city in 1904, probably as an escape from Cork Botanic Garden.

Crested Field-speedwell, Veronica crista-galli, Lus cré mór