Buglossoides Moench

Scientific Description

Family Boraginaceae.

Habit and leaf form. Shrubs, or herbs; without essential oils. Autotrophic. Annual, or perennial. Leaves cauline. Plants with neither basal nor terminal concentrations of leaves; to 0.5 m high. Helophytic, or mesophytic, or xerophytic. Leaves small to medium-sized; alternate, or alternate and opposite (then opposite below); petiolate to subsessile (when opposite), or sessile (when alternate); non-sheathing; not gland-dotted; simple; epulvinate. Leaf blades dorsiventral, or isobilateral; entire; flat; linear to lanceolate; obovate, or oblong, or elliptic; cross-venulate. Mature leaf blades adaxially pubescent; abaxially pubescent. Leaves without stipules. Leaf blade margins entire. Leaves without a persistent basal meristem. Leaf anatomy. Hairs present. Urticating hairs absent. Stem anatomy. Secondary thickening developing from a conventional cambial ring.

Reproductive type, pollination. Fertile flowers hermaphrodite. Unisexual flowers absent. Plants hermaphrodite. Plants homostylous, or heterostylous (sometimes). Entomophilous.

Inflorescence and flower features. Flowers aggregated in ‘inflorescences’; in cymes. Inflorescences simple. The terminal inflorescence unit cymose (coiled at first). Inflorescences terminal; leafy, scorpioid; not pseudanthial. Flowers pedicellate; bracteate; bracteolate; small; regular; 5 merous; cyclic; tetracyclic. Free hypanthium absent. Hypogynous disk present, or absent. Perianth with distinct calyx and corolla; 10; 2 -whorled; isomerous. Calyx present; 5; 1 -whorled; gamosepalous; lobed; imbricate, or open in bud, or valvate; persistent; accrescent. Calyx lobes linear. Corolla present; 5; 1 -whorled; appendiculate (with a ring of minute nectary scales at the base of corolla tube, but lacking scales at corolla throat); gamopetalous; lobed. Corolla lobes markedly shorter than the tube. Corolla imbricate, or contorted; tubular; regular; hairy abaxially; hairy adaxially (hairs in 5 longitudinal bands from the throat to the anthers); with a continuous or sometimes discontinuous raised circle at the base of the tube; white to cream, or blue to purple. Corolla lobes oblong. Fertile stamens present. Androecial members definite in number. Androecium 5. Androecial members unbranched; adnate (to the corolla); all equal; free of one another; 1 -whorled. Androecium exclusively of fertile stamens. Stamens 5. Staminal insertion near the base of the corolla tube, or midway down the corolla tube. Stamens remaining included; isomerous with the perianth; oppositisepalous; filantherous (to subsessile), or with sessile anthers. Anthers dorsifixed to basifixed; dehiscing via longitudinal slits; introrse; tetrasporangiate; unappendaged. Gynoecium 2 carpelled. The pistil 4 celled. Carpels reduced in number relative to the perianth. Gynoecium syncarpous; synstylovarious to eu-syncarpous; superior. Ovary plurilocular (4-lobed); 2 locular (‘really’, but rarely ostensibly so), or 4 locular (ostensibly, via false septa). Locules secondarily divided by ‘false septa’. Gynoecium median; stylate. Styles 1; simple; from a depression at the top of the ovary; ‘gynobasic’; not becoming exserted. Stigmas when considered as 2-lobed then 1, or 2 (when considered as separate stigmas); 1 - lobed, or 2 - lobed; capitate (and surmounted by a short sterile appendage). Placentation basal. Ovules differentiated; 2 per locule (i.e. per true locule), or 1 per locule (per cell, the gynoecium separating into one-ovuled portions); horizontal to ascending; epitropous; non-arillate; anatropous, or hemianatropous.

Fruit and seed features. Fruit aerial; fleshy, or non-fleshy; not spinose; a schizocarp. Mericarps 2, or 4; comprising nutlets; shiny (and smooth), or dull (and tuberculate). Seeds endospermic, or non-endospermic. Cotyledons 2. Embryo straight, or curved.

Special features. Corolla tube straight.

Etymology. Originally from the Greek for "ox", "tongue" and the suffix "-like"; refers to the shape and roughness of the leaves.