Steve Schwartzman posted: " While walking in a familiar place just south of Austin's McKinney Falls State Park on April 14th I noticed several instances of an unfamiliar plant at the edge of still water. I took pictures and posted a few of them in the Texas Flora group on Faceb"
While walking in a familiar place just south of Austin's McKinney Falls State Park on April 14th I noticed several instances of an unfamiliar plant at the edge of still water. I took pictures and posted a few of them in the Texas Flora group on Facebook in hopes of getting an identification. I did, and a speedy one at that, from Aidan Campos: Veronica anagallis-aquatica, known as water speedwell. These plants grow only about a foot tall, and their flowers are tiny, no more than a quarter of an inch (6mm) across. The second picture shows the unusual way the paired inflorescences emerge from the same axil that gives rise to a pair of leaves that clasp the stem.
Speaking of speedwell, the large 1913 Webster's Dictionary gave as its first definition of speed not what we would expect today but rather 'prosperity in an undertaking; favorable issue; success.' (We see that original sense in the old-fashioned Godspeed.) The American Heritage Dictionary tells us that the underlying Indo-European root *spē-, which meant 'to thrive, prosper,' also appears in our Latin-derived words prosper and, on the negative side, despair.
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