Veronica wormskjoldii is a species of flowering plant in the plantain family known by the common name American alpine speedwell. It is native to much of northern and western North America, including the western United States and northern Canada, from where it grows in moist alpine habitat, such as mountain forest understory. It has a wide subarctic distribution from Alaska to Greenland. It is named after the Danish botanist Morten de Wormskjold (1783–1845) who had studied under professor Jens Wilken Hornemann (1770–1841) and had reportedly collected 157 species of vascular plants during an expedition to Greenland in 1812–1813, more than doubling the then number known. The expedition was manifestly to collect specimens for the Flora Danica and was financed by Wormskjold's father, though Hornemann sponsored chancery secretary Friedrich Gustav Heiliger (c.1789-) as botanical draftsman, paid for by the royal treasury. He stayed in Nuuk and in the vicinity of Qaqortoq and was helped to collect the plant specimens by the local Greenlandic population, which Wormskiold described.
Description It is a rhizomatous perennial herb producing a decumbent to erect, mostly unbranched stem up to tall and coated in long hairs. The oppositely arranged leaves are long and lack petioles. The inflorescence is a hairy, glandular raceme of flowers at the tip of the stem. Each flower has hairy, lance-shaped sepals and a blue corolla up to a centimeter wide. The fruit is a capsule around half a centimeter long which contains tiny flattened seeds.
Taxonomy Veronica wormskjoldii was scientifically described and named in 1817 by Johann Jacob Roemer and Josef August Schultes in the first volume of their new edition of Systema Vegetabilium. It is part of the genus Veronica which is classified in the Plantaginaceae family. It has two accepted subspecies.
Veronica wormskjoldii subsp. alterniflora – Native to western North America from Nunavut south to New Mexico Veronica wormskjoldii subsp. wormskjoldii – Native to eastern North America from Greenland to New Hampshire
Veronica wormskjoldii has synonyms of the species or one of its two subspecies.
Table of Synonyms Name Year Rank Synonym of: Notes Veronica alpina var. alterniflora 1939 variety subsp. alterniflora ≡ hom. Veronica alpina var. cascadensis 1939 variety subsp. alterniflora = het. Veronica alpina var. geminiflora 1939 variety subsp. alterniflora = het. Veronica alpina var. nutans 1847 variety subsp. alterniflora = het. Veronica alpina var. terrae-novae 1939 variety subsp. wormskjoldii = het. Veronica alpina var. unalaschcensis 1827 variety subsp. alterniflora = het. Veronica alpina var. wormskioldii 1830 variety V. wormskjoldii ≡ hom. Veronica alpina subsp. wormskjoldii 1977 subspecies V. wormskjoldii ≡ hom. Veronica mollis 1838 species subsp. alterniflora = het., nom. illeg. homonym. post. Veronica nutans 1833 species subsp. alterniflora = het. Veronica villosa 1817 species subsp. wormskjoldii = het., not validly publ. Veronica wormskjoldii f. albiflora 1994 form subsp. alterniflora = het. Veronica wormskjoldii subsp. nutans 2019 subspecies subsp. alterniflora = het. Veronica wormskjoldii var. nutans 1921 variety subsp. alterniflora = het. Notes: ≡ homotypic synonym; = heterotypic synonym
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