Annual, biennial or perennial herbs or shrubs, scabrid, hispid or canescent
Leaves
alternate or whorled, sessile or petiolate, densely hairy
Flowers
in unilateral, simple or forked scorpioid cymes; bracts small or foliaceous
Calyx
divided into 5 short segments; usually accrescent
Corolla
blue or purplish blue, bilabiate; tube broadly to narrowly funnel-shaped, straight, ± hairy outside, inside usually with a ring of 5-10 distinct scales or lobes or an undulate, entire, somewhat fleshy, collar-like membrane at base; throat ± oblique, open; with 5 short, obtuse lobes
Stamens
sometimes unequal, 2 arising near base of corolla tube, 3 higher up, the longer ones exserted; filaments linear, glabrous or with a few, long hairs; anthers versatile
Disc
present
Ovary
4-lobed, with a single ovule in each locule; gynobase disc-like; style gynobasic, exserted, linear, 2-fid; stigmas obtuse
Fruit
of 4 nutlets; nutlets convex on one face, bluntly keeled on other, usually rugose
x = 8 (7, 6) (aneuploids, high polyploidy)
Nomenclature:
*Echium
L.
Linnaeus: 139 (1753)
Linnaeus: 175 (1754)
Candolle: 13 (1846)
Bentham: 863 (1876)
Boissier: 204 (1879)
Gürke: 128 (1897)
Wright: 43 (1904)
Riedl: 213 (1967)
Gibbs: 97 (1972)
Al-Shehbaz: 137 (1991)
Verdcourt: 81 (1991)
Retief & Van Wyk: 167 (1998)
Distribution & Notes:
Global
: Species 60, mainly endemic in Madeira, the Azores and Canary Islands, but also in Africa and Asia
Southern Africa
: Species 2, naturalised: *
Echium plantagineum
L. and *
E. vulgare
L., Gauteng, Mpumalanga, Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, Lesotho, Western and Eastern Cape
References:
AL-SHEHBAZ, I.A. 1991. The genera of
Boraginaceae
in the southeastern United States.
Journal of the Arnold Arboretum
, supplementary series 1
BENTHAM, G. 1876.
Boragineae
. In G. Bentham & J.D. Hooker,
Genera plantarum
2. Reeve, London
BOISSIER, P.E. 1879.
Borragineae
.
Flora orientalis
4. H. Georg, Geneva
CANDOLLE, A.P. DE. 1846.
Borragineae
.
Prodromus
10. Victor Masson, Paris
GIBBS, P.E. 1972.
Echium
.
Flora europaea
3
GÜRKE, M. 1897.
Borraginaceae
.
Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien
4, 3a
LINNAEUS, C. VON. 1753.
Species plantarum
. Laurentius Salvius, Stockholm
LINNAEUS, C. VON. 1754.
Genera plantarum
, edn 5. Laurentius Salvius, Stockholm
RETIEF, E. & VAN WYK, A.E. 1998. The genus
Echium
(
Boraginaceae
) in southern Africa.
Bothalia
28
RIEDL, H. 1967.
Boraginaceae
.
Flora iranica
48
VERDCOURT, B. 1991.
Boraginaceae
.
Flora of tropical East Africa
.
Boraginaceae
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