Borragtnacee—Omphalodes. 325 
8. OMPHALODES. 
Annual or perennial herbs, distinguished by the 4 nuts being 
furnished with a membranous inflexed wing or border which 
renders them cup-shaped. There are several species from 
Southern Europe and Western Asia. The name is from 6udanros, 
the navel, and eidos, form or shape, the resemblance of the 
nuts. 
1. O. vérna. Venus’s Navelwort.—A handsome and early- 
flowering herbaceous perennial with creeping branches and 
ascending flowering shoots about 6 inches high. Lower leaves 
cordate, on long slender petioles, glabrescent, upper narrower. 
Flowers blue, about half an inch in diameter, in loose racemes, 
appearing in March and April. South of Europe. 
2. O. linifolia.—A glaucous annual about a foot high with 
narrow leaves and long racemes of white flowers tinged with 
blue. A native of Portugal. 
Cynogléssum is a neighbouring genus whose species have 
ample foliage, blue, purple or reddish flowers, followed by 
large shortly stalked prickly nuts. C. officinale has dull red 
flowers, and C. montanwm bluish flowers; neither is very 
common in Britain. 
Lindelofia spectabilis, syn. Cynogléssum longiflorum, is a 
neat-growing perennial about a foot high with oblong leaves 
and racemes of showy blue flowers. It is from North India, 
and flowers towards the end of Spring. 
9. HELIOTROPIUM. 
Herbs or undershrubs with alternate petiolate leaves and 
lateral or terminal circinate cymes of small blue or white 
flowers. Corolla funnel- or salver-shaped, with a plicate limb. 
Tt differs from all the preceding genera in having the nuts 
consolidated, but eventually separating, and 1-seeded. There 
is one European species, and several others from the warmer 
and tropical parts of both the Old and New Worlds. The 
name is from #Avos, the sun, and zpo77, a turning, in allusion 
probably to the form of their inflorescence. 
1. H. Peruvidnum. Turnsole or Cherry-pie.—This tender 
dwarf shrub is so well known that description would be super- 
fluous. The agreeable scent of its lilac or dark blue flowers 
forms its principal recommendation. There are now many 
