Scientific name: Euphrasia micrantha Rchb.
Common name: Eyebright
Description
Habit: A small hemiparasitic annual, to 25 cm high, whole plant often tinged with purple.
Stems: Erect, slender, with 2-7 pairs of slender and erect branches arising from the middle, usually again branched.
Leaves: Stalkless, toothed, without stipules; upper leaves alternate, lower leaves opposite.
Flowers: Lilac to purple or with the lower lip white (rarely all white) with a yellow patch, zygomorphic, hermaphrodite, stalkless in axils of upper leaves often forming a loose and terminal spike, lowest flower at node 6-14; 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, with long fine hairs.
Euphrasia is a difficult group, the species boundaries complicated by hybridisation. Several plants are necessary for identification.
Habitat: Moorlands, bogs and heaths, rarely in peaty pockets on limestone pavement or on tussocks in fens.Distribution: Rather rare.
Native status: Native
Of conservation interest: No