Scientific name: Euphrasia salisburgensis Funk ex Hoppe
Common name: Eyebright
Description
Habit: A small hemiparasitic annual, to 12 cm high.
Stems: Erect to flexuous with 1-7 pairs of slender, erect or spreading branches, often again branched and giving a bushy outline.
Leaves: Stalkless, without stipules, toothed with 2-4 long teeth on each side, narrow (more than 1.5 times as long as broad), green or bronze; upper leaves alternate, lower leaves opposite.
Flowers: White or upper lip sometimes tinged with lilac, with yellow patch on the lower lip of corolla; zygomorphic, hermaphrodite, stalkless in axils of upper leaves often forming a loose and terminal spike, lowest flower at node 5-13; calyx of 4 sepals fused, with 4 undivided and finely pointed lobes; corolla of 4 petals fused into 2-lips, 4.5-6.5 mm across, with a slender corolla tube, upper lip 2-lobed, lower lip deeply 3-lobed with notched lobes; stamens 4, borne on corolla tube; ovary superior, 2-celled, style 1.
Fruits: A capsule with many seeds, twice as long as broad, hairless or with a few short hairs.
Euphrasia is a difficult group, the species boundaries complicated by hybridisation. Several plants are necessary for identification.
Habitat: Shallow soils over limestone pavement, also on calcareous sands. Parasitic to Thymus praecox.Distribution: Abundant in the Burren, rare elsewhere.
Native status: Native
Of conservation interest: No