Erect, annual or biennial herbs 20-40 cm tall. Leaves oblong to lanceolate or almost linear. Flowers usually blue with a yellow eye but cultivars in a range of other colours, mostly pink and white. Sepals with hooked hairs.

Eurasia

Sometimes provided as named seed mixes or as flower colour and habit cultivars, including 'Compindi', 'Nina Blue', 'Nina Rose', 'Nina White' and 'Royal Blue', which is a tall and prolific early flowerer.

Plants listed as M. alpestris F.W. Schmidt are probably M. sylvatica.

 

Another species occasionally available is the Eurasian M. scorpioides L.,Water Forget-me-not [M. palustris Lam.], as the cultivar M. 'Mermaid'.

Source: Spencer, R. (2002). Boraginaceae. In: Spencer, R.. Horticultural Flora of South-eastern Australia. Volume 4. Flowering plants. Dicotyledons. Part 3. The identification of garden and cultivated plants. University of New South Wales Press.