BORAGINACEiE. 



Nat. syst. ed. 2. p. 274. 



BORAGO. 



Sepals 5, equal, spreading. Corolla rotate, with 5 flat spread- 

 ing lobes, with 5 erect appendages or valves (sterile stamens), 

 arising from the throat. Anthers sagittate. Nuts ovate, rugose, 

 converging. 



984. B. officinalis Linn. sp. pi. 1 97. E. Bot. t. 36. Smith 

 Eng. Fl. i. 264-. — Common in many places by roadsides, and in 

 waste ground. (Borage.) 



Root tapering, mucilaginous, as well as the herbage, which is clothed 

 all over with very pungent bristles. Stem branched li or 2 feet high, 

 round, spreading, leafy. Leaves alternate, ovate, wavy, and more or 

 less toothed ; the lower ones broadest, and stalked. Flowers nume- 

 rous, in terminal drooping bunches, very beautiful. Corolla an inch 

 broad, of a most brilliant blue ; pink in the bud. Valves and anthers 

 prominent, blackish. Fruit wrinkled and warty, of a light shining 

 brown. — The whole plant has an odour approaching to Cucumber and 

 Burnet, which gives a flavour to a cool tankard ; but its supposed 

 exhilarating qualities, which caused Borage to be reckoned one of the 

 four cordial flowers, along with Alkanet, Roses, and Violets, may 

 justly be doubted. Smith. It was once esteemed as a pectoral 

 medicine, and a decoction of its leaves mixed with honey makes a 

 good ptisan. 



TRICHODESMA. 



Calyx 5-parted. Corolla somewhat rotate ; throat naked ; 

 segments of the limb subulate at the point. Stamens very much 

 protruding : filaments very short ; anthers adhering by 2 rows 

 of dorsal hairs, with subulate twisted aristae. Stigma nearly 

 simple. Nuts half immersed in the hollows of a 4-winged column, 

 adnate near the point. RBr. 



985. T. zeylanica RBr. prodr. 352. — Borago zeylanica 

 Linn. mant. 202. Jacq.ic.rar. ii. t. 314. Burnt, ind. 41. t. 14. 

 f. 2. — Various parts of the East Indies ; the tropical part of 

 New Holland. 



An annual, with the stem hispid with stiff pellucid bristly hairs; 

 growing from 4 to as much as 8 feet high. Leaves opposite, subsessile, 

 lanceolate, sparingly hispid ; those under the flowers alternate, small, 

 cordate-lanceolate. Peduncles nearly solitary, 1-flowered, drooping, 

 longer than the floral leaves, round and hairy. Flowers pale blue. 

 Calyx with 5 elevated ridges proceeding from its recesses, expanding on 

 the fruit. Segments of the corolla broad, cordate with attenuated points. 

 483 I I 2 



