Pentaglottis sempervirens v echium pininana

Igrowfromseed

Been digging up some self setters of what I thought were the echium but are now looking suspiciously like the green alkanet. Noticed a few of the echium seedling have small brown dots on the leaves otherwise both are very similar when small.
Any other clues?

Silver surfer

Pentaglotis  sempervirens ...common name green alkanet.....has the white dots on the leaf. It is rather hairy
Once it flowers you cannot mistake it.
It looks very pretty but beware it is an evil thug.

Igrowfromseed

Silver surfer said:

Pentaglotis  sempervirens ...common name green alkanet.....has the white dots on the leaf. It is rather hairy
Once it flowers you cannot mistake it.
It looks very pretty but beware it is an evil thug.

Hi
Sorry I didn’t make myself clear. It’s at the 2 leaf seedling stage where I’m finding it difficult to differentiate. My alkanet doesn’t have the white dots on the leaves that yours does.

Igrowfromseed

Echium sis coming along fine. Loads of self setters 

Rob Lockwood

Hi Igrow - the echium look to be much narrower leaves than the alkanet seedlings which are all over my garden. I'd say that seedling pics 1, 3, 5 & 6 are almost definitely alkanet; 2 probably as well (if the only choice is Ech or Alk - the leaves are rounder), with 7 (likely 4 too) looking like the echium.

Igrowfromseed

Hi Rob thanks for your comments and I agree with you. The other good sign is the speckling on the leaf pores which has fine hairs, most visible on the edges