Pseudo-hosta an unforgettable Chatham Island borage...

This is the Chatham Island Forget-me-not, or Kopakopa. Looking at the flower you can see why it is called a Forget-me-not, which the name we give to species of Myosotis, usually Myosotis sylvatica.

New Zealand is home to over 40 of the 100 or so species of Myosotis, many rare and at risk of extinction; and this doesn't include the commonly grown Myosotis sylvatica and other horticultural escapes (as photographed here from a home garden near Wellington, New Zealand).

The Chatham Island Forget-me-not isn't a Myosotis but it is the same plant family, Boraginaceae, along with culinary herbs borage and comfrey.

The botanical name is our plant is Myosotidium hortensia (not, as you might expect, Myosotidium hortensium, due to the strange rules of Latin grammar). The genus name refers to its similarity with Myosotis, as noted, although in an evolutionary sense it's closest relatives are other genera in Boraginaceae, and in South America rather than in New Zealand.

The species name means 'of the garden', based on the Latin word hortus. I'm assuming that's because it was recognised early on as an attractive plant for gardens, or perhaps looked like some more familiar garden plants.

After - or to be honest before - you notice the flowers, its the leaves that make you wonder. They are big and fleshy, like a hosta or bergenia.

The veins in the leaves look like they are almost parallel, which is what we expect in lilies and other 'monocots', but in reality they are not quite so (not the forking in the next picture), and the Chatham Island Forget-me-not is unrelated to monocot families.

The flowers are usually deep blue (at least near their centre), darker than the pastel blue of most common Forget-me-nots, but there is also a white-flowered form in cultivation. That white-flowered form is now extinct in the wild, where even the more common blue-flowered form is greatly reduced in number due to land clearing, grazing and competition from weeds.

In the Chatham Islands, Myosotidium grows near the beach, sprayed by the sea. In Wellington, where I saw and photographed it, it seems to like a shaded, well-watered spot but in positions as rugged as traffic islands.

There is only one species, so I think if you find Forget-me-not-like flowers arising from hosta-like leaves, you are growing Myosotidium. Which will please you.