2 o Borraginacecz Echium. 



o 



2. 



Tall herbaceous or suffruticose plants, usually clothed with 

 rough hairs having a thickened base. Leaves entire. Flowers 

 blue, violet, red or white, in spiked or racemose panicles. 

 Calyx 5-lobed. Corolla cylindrical or funnel-shaped, with a 

 dilated naked throat and an unequally 5-lobed limb. Stamens 

 exserted ; anthers free. Nuts 4, rough, inserted on the flat 

 receptacle by a flat base. There are about fifty species, chiefly 

 from the Mediterranean countries and South Africa. The generic 

 name is from g^s-, a viper, from the resemblance, it is said, of 

 the seeds or 'nuts of some species to a viper's head. The 

 Viper's Bugloss, E. vulgare, is a handsome indigenous species 

 with reddish purple, ultimately blue, or rarely white flowers. 

 It grows from 1 to 3 feet high, and is of annual or biennial 

 duration. 



E. violaceum is an allied species with long simple spikes of 

 remarkably bright violet-blue flowers. E. Creticum is a dwarfer 

 annual plant with red flowers ; and E. pomponium a tall 

 biennial with flesh-coloured flowers. 



Borrago officinalis^ Borage, occasionally seen in gardens and 

 waste places, is a distinct plant with broad sinuate leaves and 

 large blue flowers with conspicuous black anthers. The flowers 

 are borne in a loose cyme, and remarkable for the rotate deeply- 

 lobed corolla having broad notched scales at the mouth of the 



tube. 



3. S1TMPHYTUM. 



Perennial scabrid herbs with thick fleshy roots. Radical 

 leaves stalked, cauline sessile or decurrent. Flowers white, red, 

 purple, blue or yellow, in terminal bracteate cymes. Calyx 5- 

 lobed or -toothed. Corolla tubular, inflated, shortly 5-toothed, 

 the throat closed by ciliated scales. Stamens 5, included. 

 Nuts 4, smooth. There are about fifteen species in Europe and 

 West Asia, The name is said to be an altered form of a Greek 

 word signifying to cement, in allusion to the healing properties 

 of some species. S. officinale, Comfrey, a British species, is a 

 tall herb with ample foliage and yellow or purplish flowers. 

 This species was formerly employed in domestic medicine. 



1. S. Bohemicum. This is scarcely distinguishable from the 

 common Comfrey, except in its bright reddish purple flowers, 

 which appear in Summer. 



2. S. asperrimum. A tall-growing species, remarkable for 



