BORAGE FAMILY 



(Boraginacece) 



Herbs or sometimes shrubs, chiefly rough-hairy; the gamo- 

 petalous flowers, as in the Waterleaf Family, borne in coiled 

 clusters which straighten as the blossoms expand. Style 

 usually single but sometimes 2-cleft, arising from a conspicuous 

 4-parted ovary becoming at maturity usually as many nutlets. 



FIDDLE NECK (Amsinckia spectdbilis, F. & M.). Flowers 

 yellow or orange, individually rather small but showy in the 

 mass, borne in coiled spikes or racemes. Leaves alternate, 

 narrow, very hairy. A slender annual a foot high or so, com- 

 mon on grassy mesas and open ground throughout much of 

 California. 



This species is hard to distinguish from two or three others 

 that extend eastward across the deserts to Arizona. They 

 often make considerable areas vivid with their massed flowers. 

 Harsh as the plants are to the touch, they are much relished 

 by cattle and in Arizona they are known by a Spanish term 

 sacate gordo, which means "fat grass." 



The resemblance of the flower stems with their tightly coiled 

 spikes to fiddlenecks, accounts for the common English name. 

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