Description:

• Annual or perennial herbs, variously hairy
• Leaves alternate, rosulate at base, sessile, linear or linear-lanceolate
• Flowers in terminal, dichotomous cymes or simple, unilateral racemes at length loosely panicled; cymes scorpioid, bracteate
• Calyx ± deeply 5-lobed; with campanulate tube; lobes linear, slightly enlarged in fruit
• Corolla purple, blue or white; tube straight, cylindrical, short or of medium length; throat equal or slightly enlarged, with 5 ovate or oblong, papillose or hairy scales opposite lobes; lobes 5, imbricate, shorter than tube
• Stamens arising in middle of corolla tube, included; filaments filiform; anthers linear, oblong, obtuse, longer than filaments
• Ovary 4-lobed, 4-locular, with a single ovule in each locule; gynobase disc-like; style gynobasic, semiterete, as long as corolla tube; stigma capitate
• Fruit of 4 nutlets; nutlets strongly convex on back, with marginal rim on face, rugose, a thickened collar-like ring present at base
• x = 6, 8 (7, 11) (aneuploids, polyploidy, B-chromosomes)

Nomenclature:

• Anchusa L.
  • Linnaeus: 133 (1753)
  • Linnaeus: 64 (1754)
  • Candolle: 41 (1846)
  • Bentham: 855 (1876)
  • Gürke: 112 (1897)
  • Wright: 16 (1904)
  • Riedl: 232 (1967)
  • Chater: 106 (1972)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 35, in Europe, North Africa and W Asia
• Southern Africa: Species 2: *Anchusa azurea Mill., introduced from Europe and A. capensis Thunb., indigenous in Namibia, Free State, Lesotho, Northern, Western and Eastern Cape