Borage Family

Boraginaceae (bor-aj-in-AY-see-ee)

Iconic Features

• Plants often with bristly hairs
• Flower clusters usually coiled
• Corolla tube of 5 fused petals

Description (Jepson)

• Eudicotyledons (eudicots) – a major lineage of flowering plants including most plants traditionally described as dicots and generally characterized by
  • 2 seed leaves (dicotyledon)
  • Netted (reticulate) leaf venation
  • Flower parts in fours and fives
  • Pollen grains with 3 pores (tricolpate)
  • Vascular bundles in stem arranged in a ring
  • Taproot system
• Herbs, both annual and perennial, and shrubs
• Leaves
  • Generally narrow, simple (not divided into leaflets)
  • Alternate (1 leaf at each junction with stem)
• Flowers
  • Inflorescence (flower arrangement) is a cyme (branched stem with flowers opening from the top down)
    • Usually coiled like a fiddlehead (scorpioid cyme), which uncurls in fruit
  • Bisexual, generally radially-symmetric flowers, with 5 fused petals in a corolla tube (corolla is the collective term for petals)
  • Petals usually with appendages which form a crown, most often a different color than the rest of the corolla
  • Ovary usually superior (above the attachment of other flower parts)
• Fruits are 1 to 4 single-seeded nutlets (a small, dry fruit that does not split open, derived from a multi-chambered ovary); some may not mature

Notes

• Approximately 1600 species worldwide
  • Includes forget-me-nots, comfrey, and fiddlenecks
• Plants often rough with bristly hairs, which may irritate skin
• Many genera may be toxic from pyrrolizidine alkaloids or accumulated nitrates
• Scientific name from the included Mediterranean genus borago, from an ancient name of uncertain origin; perhaps from the Latin burra, “a hairy garment,” alluding to the hairy leaves
• Also called the Forget-me-not family
• The 2012 Jepson revision (2nd edition) subsumed the Waterleaf family; the 2021 revision reinstated the Waterleaf family
• Represented by 8 species at Edgewood

Specific References

Mason, J. 2004. Boraginaceae — Borage family characteristics [Illustration of cyme, adapted]. T. Corelli. Flowering Plants of Edgewood Natural Preserve (2nd. ed.). Monocot Press, Half Moon Bay, California.

General References

Calflora Database. 2014. Berkeley, California.

Calscape. 2018. California Native Plant Society.

Charters, M.L. 2015. California Plant Names: Latin and Greek Meanings and Derivations.

Charters, M.L. 2017. Southern California Wildflowers: Guide to the Pronunciation of Specific, Generic and Family Names.

Corelli, T. 2004. Flowering Plants of Edgewood Natural Preserve (2nd. ed.). Monocot Press, Half Moon Bay, California.

Elpel, T.J. 2013. Botany in a Day: The Patterns Method of Plant Identification. HOPS Press, Pony, Montana.

Flora of North America. efloras.org.

Harris, J.G. and M.W. Harris. 2013. Plant Identification Terminology: An Illustrated Glossary. Spring Lake Publishing, Spring Lake, Utah.

Keator, G. 2009. California Plant Families. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, California.

Native American Ethnobotany DB.

Regents of the University of California. Jepson eFlora. Jepson Herbarium. University of California, Berkeley.

Browse Some Edgewood Plants in this Family