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Veronica americana
Also called American Brooklime, Speedwell
American speedwell is a native perennial herb of wet ground, streamsides and bottomlands, grown for its violet spikes and edible leaves. Keep the roots in moist or wet soil and it grows readily.
Veronica americana, variously called American brooklime or American speedwell, is a flowering plant native to temperate and arctic Asia and North America where it grows in streams and bottomlands.
It is a herbaceous perennial with glabrous stems 10–100 cm (4–40 in) long that bear terminal or axillary racemes or spikes of soft violet flowers. The leaves are 1.5–8 cm (0.6–3.1 in) long and 3 to 20 times as long as wide, short-petiolate, glabrous, serrate to almost entire.
American speedwell is used both as food and as a medicinal plant. It is rich in nutrients and is reported to have a flavor similar to that of watercress. As long as the water source is not contaminated, the entire plant (sans roots) can be eaten raw.
Veronica sect. Hebe · Veronica Recurva · Water speedwell · Corn speedwell · Broadleaf speedwell · European speedwell · Fiordland Parahebe · Pink Water-speedwell · Ash Coloured Speedwell · Dillenius' speedwell · Silver Speedwell · Veronica liwanensis
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Veronica americana by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
