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Portrait of Field forget-me-not

Nature · Wildflowers & flowers

Field forget-me-not

Archaeophyte (pre-1500 introduction) · flowers spring to autumn · fields, verges, open ground and dry grassland

Myosotis arvensis — Boraginaceae

A slender, hairy annual with curled sprays of tiny sky-blue flowers, a frequent plant of arable margins, verges, walls and open, dry grassland rather than damp woods. The BSBI treats it as an archaeophyte in Britain and Ireland. Its flowers are much smaller than those of the woodland and garden forget-me-nots, and that is the key to telling them apart.

How to spot them

  • ▸Tiny blue five-lobed flowers 2.5–5 mm across, with a yellow ring (scales) at the throat, borne on a curled flower spike that unfurls as it opens
  • ▸Roughly hairy stems and leaves, with spreading hairs; slender, 15–30 cm tall (occasionally to 60 cm)
  • ▸The calyx stays closed over the ripening nutlets and is covered in hooked hairs, unlike the open calyx of wood forget-me-not
  • ▸Wood forget-me-not (Myosotis sylvatica) has flowers over 5 mm, usually 6–10 mm, and the calyx is open in fruit
  • ▸Open ground: cultivated fields, verges, hedgebanks, walls, quarries and dry grassland

How to know it

Tiny blue flowers, hardly 5 mm across, on curled sprays above rough, hairy leaves, on open dry ground; calyx closed over the seeds

Field forget-me-not, Myosotis arvensis.

Its genus name means 'mouse-ear', a reference to the small, soft, hairy leaves

Myosotis — from Greek for mouse ear. Field forget-me-not.

The flowering stalk uncoils like a scorpion's tail as the succession of blue flowers opens

Field forget-me-not (RHS: curved flowering stalk unfurls).

BSBI classes it as an archaeophyte, a plant that arrived with early farming before 1500, in Britain, Ireland and the Channel Islands

Field forget-me-not.

To separate it from the woodland species, check the flower size against 5 mm and whether the calyx stays closed over the seed

Field forget-me-not versus wood forget-me-not (BSBI crib).

Quick-fire facts

  • •Family Boraginaceae, the borage family; Myosotis means 'mouse-ear' from Greek
  • •BSBI Plant Atlas: an annual or biennial of open or disturbed ground, especially cultivated fields, also woodland edges, grassland, hedges, roadsides, walls and quarries
  • •BSBI classes it as an archaeophyte in Great Britain, Ireland and the Channel Islands; GB Red List: Least Concern
  • •Flowers are 2.5–5 mm across, against 6–10 mm in wood forget-me-not; the BSBI says the critical measurement is 5 mm
  • •The closed, appressed calyx of freshly picked field forget-me-not conceals the seeds, while that of wood forget-me-not is open
  • •RHS: an annual to short-lived perennial that may form an overwintering rosette of hairy leaves, flowering mainly in spring but sometimes till autumn
  • •The whole plant is rough with spreading hairs, and the flowers are blue and occasionally pink
  • •The 'scorpion grass' habit, curled flower spikes, is a mark of the borage family

Drill it — 6 cards

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