BORAGE FAMILY. 255 



8 ECHINOSPERMUSI- Corolla with tube as short as the rounded lobes, the 

 throat closed with short rounded scales. Nutlets erect, fixed to the centraV 

 column or base of the style, triangular, roughened, and bearing one or more 

 marginal rows of barb-tipped prickles, foriping small burs. Coarse weeds, 

 withjeafy-bracted racemeu flowers. 



9. CYNOGLdSSUM. Corolla between short funnel-form and wheel-shaped, the 

 tube about the length of the rounded lobes ; throat closed by the blunt scales. 

 Nutlets bur-like, oblique on the expanded base of the style, to which they 

 are fixed by their apex, roughened all oyer with short barbed or hooked 

 prickles. Coarse ana strong-scented plants, with racemed flowers, the lower 

 sometimes bracted, otherwise bractless. 



•*~ +- Cor(Ma tubular and more or less funnel-ahaptd. 



10. LYCOPSIS. Corolla with a curved tube, slightly oblique B-lobed border, and 



bristly-hairy scales in the throat. Staniens included in the tube. Nut- 

 lets rough-wrinkled, erect, fixed by a hollowed base. Coarse, rough-bristly 

 plants. 



11. SYMPHYTUM. Corolla straight, tubular-funnel form, with short spreading 



lobes which are somewhat longer than the large' awl-shaped scales and 

 the linear or lanceolate iinthers. Style slender, commonly protruding. . Nut- 

 lets erect, smooth, coriaceous, fixed by a hollowed base, (hoarse herbs, branch- 

 •^ ing and leafy, with thickened or tuberous roots, the juice mucilaginous and 

 bitterish, used in popular medicine. Flowers nodding in raceme-like often 

 forked clusters, either naked or leafy-bracted at base. 



II. HELIOTROPE FAMILY, the ovary not divided but 

 tipped with the simple style, the fruit when ripe separating into 2 

 or 4 closed pieces or nutlets. 



12. HELIOTEOPIUM. Corolla short funnel-form or salver-shaped, the open throat 



more or less plaited. Anthers nearly sessile, included. Style short: stigm'a 

 conical or capitate. Ovary 4-celled, in fruit splitting into 4 nutlets. Flowers 

 small, in one-sided single or cymdse-clustered spikes, mostly bractless. 



13. HELIOPHYTUM. Corolla constricted at the throat. Style very short. Fruit 



mitre-shaped, splitting at maturity into 2 nutlets each 2-celled. Otherwise 

 as in Heliotropium. 



1. ECHIUM, VIPER'S BUGLOSS. (Name from Greek word for viper.) 

 E. vulg&re, Common V. or Blueweed. Cult, from Eu. in old gardens, 



and a weed in fields, Penn. to Virginia : l°-2° high, very rough-bristly; with 

 lanceolate sessile leaves, and showy flowers in racemed clusters, the purple 

 corolla changing to bright blue, in summer. (D 



2. BOSBAGO, B0BA6E. (Oldname, supposed corruption of eorago, from 

 imagined cordial properties.) 



B. officials. Common B. Cult, from Eu. in old gardens, spreading, 

 branched, beset with sharp and whitish spreading bristles ; leaves oval or 

 oblong-lanceolate ; flowers loosely racemed, handsome, blue or purplish, with 

 dark anthers, in summer. ® 



3. MERTENSIA. (Named for a Prof. Merlens, of Germany.) ^ 



M. Virginica., Vieginian or Smooth Lungwort. Alluvial soil "W. 

 & S., and cult, for ornament : a very smooth and pale leafy plant, 1° — 2° high, 

 with obovate entire leaves, those of the root long-petioled, handsome flowers 

 spreading or hanging on slender pedjcels in loose raceme-like clusters, the light 

 blue or at first purple corolla 1' long : fl. spring. 



4. ONOSMODIUM, FALSE GROMWELL. (Name means like Onos- 

 ma, an European genus of this family.) Wild jilants of the country, mostly 

 in rich soil, in dry or alluvial ground : flowers leafy-bractod, greenish or yc[- 

 lowish-white, in summer, y. 



