| Author | Lehmann | |
| Distribution | Present over most of the Mountains, except the southwestern counties; also scattered in the northern Coastal Plain and northeastern Piedmont. Collections from the Piedmont and Coastal Plain are old, and it might now be extirpated from the state outside the Mountains.
This is a wide-ranging Northern species ranging from Canada southward in the East only to northern and western NC and eastern TN. It also occurs in the Western states. | |
| Abundance | Uncommon (at least locally) in the northern Mountains, rare in the central Mountains, and seemingly absent west of Haywood and Jackson counties. Very rare to absent currently from the eastern Piedmont and Coastal Plain, with more data needed. The species probably deserves to be on the Watch List, especially owing to uncertainty about its current status in the eastern counties; nearly all collections are old, and the species is clearly declining in NC now. In fact, there are no photos of this species from NC in iNaturalist, a very telling sign. The editors now suggest a State Rank of S2 and Watch List status. | |
| Habitat | This is a wetland species, occurring in seepages, along stream margins, and in marshes -- typically in full sun to partial shade. | |
| Phenology | Blooms from May to August, and fruits shortly after flowering. | |
| Identification | This is a small and slender species, decumbent to ascending, and rooting at nodes. It can reach up to 6-9 inches tall, usually with a few branches. The rather few stem leaves are alternate and oblong to elliptical, about 1.5 inches long and 1/4-inch wide. There are a few short racemes from the ends of the branches, with numerous very small light blue to whitish-blue flowers. Each flower has 5 lobes but is barely 1/5-inch across. Nonetheless, as there are relatively few blue-flowered species in sunny seepages and damp stream margins, it should be obvious when in bloom. It can be easily confused with the more familiar, more numerous, and non-native M. scorpioides, which also grows in damp ground in the mountains, in similar places as does M. laxa. That exotic species has noticeably larger flowers, about 1/2-inch across, brighter blue in color, and has angled stems (as opposed to rounded ones in M. laxa). More than likely, you will run into the non-native species more often in the mountains than you will the native one. | |
| Taxonomic Comments | The taxon present in NC is the nominate one -- M. laxa ssp. laxa.
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| Other Common Name(s) | Tufted Forget-me-not, Bay Forget-me-not, Smallflower Forget-me-not, Small Forget-me-not. No common name is in wide usage, and thus this website chooses the one used by Peterson and McKenny (1968) and Weakley (2018). | |
| State Rank | S2S3 [S2] | |
| Global Rank | G5 | |
| State Status | [W1] | |
| US Status | | |
| USACE-agcp | OBL link |
| USACE-emp | OBL link |
