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)
- Inflorescence (flower arrangement) is a cyme (branched stem with flowers opening from the top down)
- 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. Cyme [Illustration]. In T. Corelli, Flowering Plants of Edgewood Natural Preserve (2nd. ed.). Monocot Press, Half Moon Bay, California.
Browse Some Edgewood Plants in this Family
