[med.L. veronica (whence also Sp. and Pg. veronica, F. véronique), app. from the name of St. Veronica.]
1. Bot. A large genus of scrophulariaceous plants (herbs or shrubs) having leafy stems and blue (rarely white or pink) flowers borne in racemes or spikes.
Many species are indigenous to the British Isles and are commonly called Speedwell. Others are cultivated in gardens for their foliage and flowers.
1527. Andrew, Brunswyke’s Distyll. Waters, II. lxxix. F ij/2. A dragma of pouder of ye same herbe Veronica.
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, 27. The Female Veronica is … much weaker, and not so good as the Male.
1657. S. Purchas, Pol. Flying Ins., I. xv. 92. Ordinarily they gather not of many little or small flowers, as … Veronica.
1664. Evelyn, Kal. Hort., 67. May. Flowers in Prime…. Valerian, Veronica double and single.
1706. Phillips (ed. Kersey), Veronica, the Herb Fluellin, or Speed-well, good for Wounds and to provoke Sweat.
1753. Chambers’s Cycl., Suppl. s.v., The common small procumbent Veronica, called male Speedwell.
1796. Withering, Brit. Pl. (ed. 3), II. 15. Brooklime,… and some other species of Veronica, afford nourishment to the Papilio cinxia.
1833. B’ness Bunsen, in Hare, Life (1879), I. ix. 377. For the first time in Italy I found my mother’s favorite veronica.
1834. Mrs. Somerville, Connex. Phys. Sci., 275. The primrose, the lily of the valley, or the veronica which adorn our meadows.
attrib. 1868. J. T. Burgess, Eng. Wild Fl., 42. One distinguishing feature of the Veronica tribe.
b. With distinguishing epithets, as earth-oak, field, foreign veronica. Cf. SPEEDWELL b.
1846–50. A. Wood, Class-bk. Bot., 406. Veronica arvensis. Field Veronica. Corn Speedwell.
1847. Darlington, Amer. Weeds, etc. (1860), 227. V. peregrina.… Foreign Veronica. Purslane Speedwell. Neckweed.
1856. Delamer, Fl. Gard. (1861), 105. Veronica Chamædrys, or Earth-Oak Veronica (from the shape of its leaves).
2. a. With a and pl. A plant or species of the genus Veronica.
1855. Poultry Chron., III. 38/1. To make the garden gay, the following roots may be planted out either in beds or patches: American cowslips,… veronicas, wall-flowers.
1882. Garden, 6 May, 317/3. Tall Veronicas will now need tying up.
1899. R. Bridges, Idle Flowers, Poems (1912), 353. Blue-eyed Veronicas And grey-faced Scabious.
b. In pl. with the. The various species that compose this genus.
1856. Delamer, Fl. Gard. (1861), 105. The Veronicas [have] … something graceful, feminine, and fragile in their aspect.
