Veronica americana, variously called American Brooklime or American Speedwell, is a plant

Plant

Plants are living organisms belonging to the kingdom Plantae. Precise definitions of the kingdom vary, but as the term is used here, plants include familiar organisms such as trees, flowers, herbs, bushes, grasses, vines, ferns, mosses, and green algae. The group is also called green plants or...

 native to temperate and arctic Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

 and North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

 where it grows in streams and bottomlands.

It is a herbaceous

Herbaceous

A herbaceous plant is a plant that has leaves and stems that die down at the end of the growing season to the soil level. They have no persistent woody stem above ground...

 perennial

Perennial plant

A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives for more than two years. The term is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter lived annuals and biennials. The term is sometimes misused by commercial gardeners or horticulturalists to describe only herbaceous perennials...

 with glabrous stems 10–100 cm long that bear terminal or axillary racemes or spikes of soft violet flowers. The leaves

Leaf

A leaf is an organ of a vascular plant, as defined in botanical terms, and in particular in plant morphology. Foliage is a mass noun that refers to leaves as a feature of plants....

 are 1.5–8 cm long and 3 to 20 times as long as wide, short-petiolate, glabrous, serrate to almost entire.

Uses and edibility

American Speedwell is edible and nutritious and is reported to have a flavor similar to watercress

Watercress

Watercresses are fast-growing, aquatic or semi-aquatic, perennial plants native from Europe to central Asia, and one of the oldest known leaf vegetables consumed by human beings...

. Native Americans used Veronica species as an expectorant tea to alleviate bronchial congestion associated with asthma and allergies. The plant can be confused with Skullcap

Skullcap

Skullcap or skull cap may refer to:* Calvaria , in anatomy, the top part of the skull* Headgear:** A Kippah or yarmulke, a small cloth skullcap worn by Orthodox Jewish men and some Jewish women...

and other members of the mint family. Members of the mint family have square sided stems, and Veronica species have rounded stems, and are easily distinguished from skullcap.