Myosotis arvensis(L.) Hill

field forget-me-not

WFO wfo-0000367842 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Myosotis arvensis, photographed by Pavel Kacl
fig. a Pavel Kacl, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-12 / obs. 205846437

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
The New York Botanical Garden
Accession
02921274
Filed as
Myosotis arvensis (L.) Hill
Det. by
G. Nakhutsrishvili 2002-01-01
Collected
D. E. Atha 2002-08-30
Origin
GE
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 55 botanical countries

Regions where Myosotis arvensis is native: Algeria, Madeira, Morocco, Tunisia, Altay, East Aegean Is., Irkutsk, Kazakhstan, Krasnoyarsk, North Caucasus, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, West Siberia, Yakutiya, Pakistan, West Himalaya, Albania, Austria, Baleares, Baltic States, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Central European Russia, Corse, Czechia-Slovakia, Denmark, East European Russia, Finland, Føroyar, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Krym, Netherlands, North European Russia, Northwest European Russia, Norway, NW. Balkan Pen., Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sardegna, Sicilia, South European Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye-in-Europe, Ukraine AlgeriaMoroccoTunisiaAltayEast Aegean Is.IrkutskKazakhstanKrasnoyarskNorth CaucasusTranscaucasusTürkiyeWest SiberiaYakutiyaPakistanWest HimalayaAlbaniaAustriaBaltic StatesBelarusBelgiumBulgariaCentral European RussiaCorseCzechia-SlovakiaDenmarkEast European RussiaFinlandFranceGermanyGreeceHungaryIcelandIrelandItalyKrymNetherlandsNorth European RussiaNorthwest European RussiaNorwayNW. Balkan Pen.PolandPortugalRomaniaSiciliaSouth European RussiaSpainSwedenSwitzerlandTürkiye-in-EuropeUkraine MadeiraBalearesFøroyarSardegna
Native distribution of Myosotis arvensis, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Albania ALB EUROPE
Austria AUT
Baleares BAL
Baltic States BLT
Belarus BLR
Belgium BGM
Bulgaria BUL
Central European Russia RUC
Corse COR
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
Denmark DEN
East European Russia RUE
Finland FIN
Føroyar FOR
France FRA
Germany GER
Great Britain GRB
Greece GRC
Hungary HUN
Iceland ICE
Ireland IRE
Italy ITA
Krym KRY
Netherlands NET
North European Russia RUN
Northwest European Russia RUW
Norway NOR
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Poland POL
Portugal POR
Romania ROM
Sardegna SAR
Sicilia SIC
South European Russia RUS
Spain SPA
Sweden SWE
Switzerland SWI
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE
Ukraine UKR
Altay ALT ASIA-TEMPERATE
East Aegean Is. EAI
Irkutsk IRK
Kazakhstan KAZ
Krasnoyarsk KRA
North Caucasus NCS
Transcaucasus TCS
Türkiye TUR
West Siberia WSB
Yakutiya YAK
Algeria ALG AFRICA
Madeira MDR
Morocco MOR
Tunisia TUN
Pakistan PAK ASIA-TROPICAL
West Himalaya WHM

Not drawn on the map: Great Britain. We hold no public-domain boundary for this region, so it is listed rather than guessed at.

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Flowering 728 in flower of 736 examined

Proportion of examined Myosotis arvensis in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 17 17 100% 82% to 100%
Feb 10 10 100% 72% to 100%
Mar 25 26 96% 81% to 99%
Apr 85 86 99% 94% to 100%
May 202 204 99% 97% to 100%
Jun 182 184 99% 96% to 100%
Jul 62 63 98% 92% to 100%
Aug 41 41 100% 91% to 100%
Sep 25 26 96% 81% to 99%
Oct 36 36 100% 90% to 100%
Nov 22 22 100% 85% to 100%
Dec 21 21 100% 85% to 100%

Peak flowering in Jan. Each bar is the share of Myosotis arvensis observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 728 of 736 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Where it actually grows measured, from 1,998 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -15.9 °C -5.9 °C 3.2 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 17.9 °C 22.8 °C 27.2 °C
Annual rainfall 531 mm 707 mm 1,496 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 80 mm 119 mm 256 mm

It is found where winters are severely cold. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 1,998 research-grade observations of Myosotis arvensis that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one. Climate from CHELSA V2.1 (Karger et al. 2017); occurrences from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 3 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Echioides annua Moench
  • Myosotis intermedia Link ex Schultz
  • Myosotis scorpioides var. arvensis L.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.