BORAGE FAMILY BORAGINACEAE 
WESTERN FALSE GROMWELL 
Onosmodium occidentale Mackenzie 
This western species is found on prairies and rocky or gravelly 
banks from Illinois to North Dakota and Manitoba, south to 
Texas and New Mexico. It is a perennial herb 1-3 feet high and 
covered with fine 
grayish hairs. 
The blooming sea- 
son is May to July. 
The calyx is deeply 
parted into § narrow 
segments. The whit- 
ish corolla is tubular, 
s-lobed at the top and 
covered outside with 
gray hairs. The 5 sta- 
mens have very short 
filaments and are at- 
tached to the tube of 
the corolla near the 
throat. The ovary is 
4-parted and the style is long and slender. Sometimes all 4 parts 
of the ovary develop into nutlets but more often only 1 or 2 
do so. The nutlets are smooth, dull white, about one-fifth of an 
inch long and somewhat pointed at the tip. 
The Shaggy False Gromwell, Onosmodium hispidissimum Mac- 
kenzie, is also found in Illinois, probably more widely distributed 
than O. occidentale. It is usually found in dry fields or thickets or 
on rocky banks. It is quite similar to the western species but is 
covered with coarser, more bristly hairs. The nutlets are distinctly 
constricted just above the base and are not much pointed at the 
end. Usually they have a brownish tinge. 
The Soft-hairy False Gromwell, Onosmodium molle Michx., and 
the Virginia False Gromwell, Onosmodium virginianum (L.) A. DC., 
have been reported as occurring in southern Illinois but they are very 
rare. The first is clothed with copious fine soft gray hairs but the 
latter has harsh and rigid appressed short bristles. The leaves of O. 
molle are sessile, one-half to 2 inches long and ovate-lanceolate; 
those of O. virginianum are 1-3 inches long, oblong, oval or oblong- ~ 
lanceolate, obtuse and sessile or the lower are oblanceolate, acutish 
and narrowed into petioles. The Virginia species occurs in thickets 
and on hillsides and the soft-hairy plant on prairies, but both bloom 
from May to July. 
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