Cynoglossum amabile - Chinese Forget-Me-Not

Chinese Forget-Me-Not is a biennial herb reaching around a foot in height, with dark greyish-green pointed leaves and rounded bright blue flowers. Flower are intense blue, the limb 1 cm wide; tube 2.5 mm long, the throat with retuse finely papillose bosses. Petals are rounded, about 4 mm in diameter. Sepal-cup is about 3 mm long, densely velvet-hairy; sepals oblong-elliptic to ovate, 2 mm long, just over 1 mm wide, becoming more ovate and somewhat accrescent and 3 x 2 mm. Basal leaves long petiolate, gray-green, oblong-lanceolate to lanceolate, 5-20 cm, densely pubescent. Stem leaves are stalkless, gray-green, oblong to lanceolate, 2-7 cm. Although its common name is Chinese Forget-me-Not, it is a much coarser plant with larger and brighter blue flowers than the Forget-Me-Not we are familiar with. The seeds and seedpods are also more like those of wild Cynoglossum officinale (Hound's Tongue), with the five large seeds covered in velcro-like hooks so that they will stick to animals or birds to be dispersed. Chinese Forget-Me-Not is native to East Himalaya, Nepal, Thailand, Tibet, China.