Question

Which plant is described by these clues? Its narrow leaves are set singly along the stem and feel like fine sandpaper, covered on both surfaces in stiff pale bristly hairs. Each flower is radially symmetrical, with five equal rounded {lobes} flaring from a slender tube. It is a {woody}-based, {evergreen} {subshrub} whose {trailing} stems form a mat 6 to 12 inches (15 to 30 cm) tall and 2 feet (60 cm) or more across. Its genus was split off from a larger group of stone-loving plants in 2008, after flower and DNA evidence showed the old grouping was not natural. Its species name is Latin for 'spread out', a nod to the loose, sprawling way the stems wander across the ground. It grows wild in south-western Europe, from western France and the Pyrenees to north-western Spain, usually on acidic ground. The blooms are a pure gentian blue, faintly striped with reddish violet, on a {corolla} tube only about half an inch (12 mm) long. It does best on acidic, lime-free soil with sharp drainage, and its leaves yellow in chalky or waterlogged ground. In gardens it is the go-to gentian-blue trailing carpet for rock walls and acid beds, sold under a trade name that changed after its genus was split.

Accepted Answer

Glandora diffusa

Name That Plant #110