Blue Pimpernel or Poorman's Weatherglass

Wetenschappelijk: Anagallis coerulea

Pimpernel is a composition of guichel (madness or rage) and salvation (healing), because it was thought that pimpernel mental illness and melancholy could heal.
Anagallis comes from the Greek word anagelao (I laugh), also because of the alleged effect of melancholy could be driven by the use of this plant.
Coerulea means blue.

Nederlands: Blauw Guichelheil

Deutsch: Blauer Gauchheil
Français: Mouron bleu

Family: primrose family, Primulaceae
Genus: Anagallis, Lysimachia

Do not give to the birds, very poisonous plant!

 

Size: 5 - 50 cm.
Lifetime: Yearling. Therofyt (no winter buds).
Flowering months: May, June, July, August, September and October. (V-X)
Roots: Root depth to 20 cm.
Stems: The lying or ascending stems not roots. They are square and bare.
Leaves: Ovate to elongated ovoid, rarely opposite or in whorls of three incumbent leaves without the stem. Black gland dots at the bottom.
Flowers: Blue, sometimes purple or green colored flowers, androgynous (male and female genitalia, crown lips have little or no glandular hairs on the edge. Petals are narrower than those of red Pimpernel (Anagallis arvensis) and cover not bleed together, about 6 mm long and 3.5 mm wide. they are cut at the top and they have four-cell glandular hairs. sepals finely serrated.
Fruit: Fruit box. The seeds are long-lived (> 5 years). Two seed-lobe (germinating with two cotyledons).
   
Biotope: Sunny, warm, open places on moist, calcareous, moderately rich soil (sand and marl).
Localities: Fields (cornfields), recast land, undeveloped land, gardens (gardens) and ruderal places in granaries, flour mills and flour mills.
Spread: All over the world, originally from southern Europe. Quite rare in Central and Southern Europe.
General: very rare, endangered, Red List 2012
Information: TOXIC

 

Specifics:

Guihelheil (Anagalis arvensis) and blue guihelheil (Anagallis coerulea) resembles bird wall by approximately the same growth habit, but the flowers are red, respectively blue.
Both species are highly toxic, but are fortunately not as common as chickweed.
The white flowers of chickweed are open all day, while the red flowers of Scarlet pimpernel (Anagallis arvensis) and the blue flowers of blue pimpernel (Anagallis coerulea) but all are open throughout the morning until about 14:00. In rainy and cloudy weather, the flowers will not open itself.

The plant should not be confused with the blue form (Anagallis arvensis subsp. foemina) of red Pimpernel (Anagallis arvensis subsp. arvensis).

 

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