Veronica verna L.

Schedule 8, Schedule 41

Native

Spring Speedwell is an annual of infertile sandy soils, occurring in short grassland and uncultivated, sometimes stony, places including rabbit warrens.  V. verna does not occur on cultivated land, but depends on intensive grazing by sheep or rabbits to keep its habitat open (A. Horsfall in Preston et al, 2002).

The last record of Spring Speedwell  in Norfolk was probably in 1946 at Santon Street. It had always been very rare in the county. It was introduced to a field at Weeting Heath in the 1970s? and the last documented record from there seems to have been in 1988 but it may have appeared since or still be in the seed bank.