Common Name: BORAGE FAMILY
Habit: Annual, perennial herb, or shrub, often bristly or sharp-hairy. Stem: prostrate-decumbent to erect. Leaf: basal and/or cauline, simple, generally alternate, sometimes opposite, especially at base. Inflorescence: cymes, arranged singly or in groups of 2--5, generally coiled in flower, generally elongating in fruit. Flower: bisexual, generally radial; sepals 5, free or fused at least at base; corolla 5-lobed, salverform, funnel-shaped, rotate, or bell-shaped, appendages (often called "fornices") 0 or 5 at top of tube, when present often differentially pigmented, alternate stamens; stamens epipetalous; ovary superior, 4-lobed, style 1, entire or minutely 2-lobed (2-branched). Fruit: nutlets 1--4, when > 1, all similar (often called "homomorphic") or 1 or 2 dissimilar in size and/or shape from the others (often called "heteromorphic"), free (fused), smooth to roughened, prickly or bristly or not.
Genera In Family: +- 90 genera, +- 1600--1700 species: mostly temperate, especially western North America, Mediterranean; some cultivated (Borago, Echium, Myosotis, Symphytum). Toxicity: Many genera may be TOXIC from pyrrolizidine alkaloids or accumulated nitrates. Note: Sometimes still treated in broader sense of TJM2 (e.g., APG IV 2016 Bot J Linn Soc 181:1--20), but recent evidence (Luebert et al. 2016) supports segregation, for our flora, of the families Ehretiaceae, Heliotropiaceae, Hydrophyllaceae, Lennoaceae, and Namaceae.
eFlora Treatment Author: Michael G. Simpson, C. Matt Guilliams, Kristen Hasenstab-Lehman & Ronald B. Kelley
Scientific Editor: Bruce G. Baldwin, C. Matt Guilliams, Kristen Hasenstab-Lehman, David J. Keil, Ronald B. Kelley, Robert W. Patterson, Thomas J. Rosatti & Michael G. Simpson

Habit: Annual herb, cushion-like, roots, plant bases red-purple or not. Stem: branches ascending to erect, slender, generally strigose. Leaf: sessile, alternate, congested at branch tips, linear, oblanceolate, or narrowly oblong, hairy. Inflorescence: spike-like cymes; flower bracts present. Flower: calyx lobes fused at base, tube circumscissile in fruit; corolla limb 1--6 mm diam, white, appendages present. Fruit: pedicel 0--0.5 mm in fruit; fruit axis +- 1/2--1× nutlet length; nutlets (2)3 or 4, generally similar (dissimilar), smooth to roughened, ridge 0; margin rounded; attachment scar abutted near apex, forked and gapped at base; style extended to or just below nutlet tips.
Etymology: (Greek: Greene's delight, for Edward L. Greene, California botanist, 1843--1915) Note: Greeneocharis is a segregate of Cryptantha, strongly supported as a separate lineage by molecular phylogenetic studies.
eFlora Treatment Author: Ronald B. Kelley, Kristen Hasenstab-Lehman, & Michael G. Simpson
Reference: Johnston 1925 Contr Gray Herbarium 74:1--125; Mathew & Raven 1962 Madroño 16:168--171; Simpson & Hasenstab 2009 Crossosoma 35:1--59; Hasenstab-Lehman & Simpson 2012 Syst Bot 37: 738--757; Simpson et al. 2017 Taxon 66:1406--1420

Habit: Annual 0.5--10 cm diam, rounded to cushion-like. Stem: 0.5--8 cm, branches slender; strigose and bristly or rough-hairy, hairs generally ascending to occasionally spreading. Leaf: 0.3--1.5 cm; hairs rough, generally ascending to spreading. Inflorescence: in 1s to 3s, 1--5-flowered, dense in fruit; bracts present; pedicel +- 0.5 mm, erect. Flower: calyx circumscissile below middle, cup-like in fruit, hairs +- like leaf hairs; corolla limb generally 1--2 mm diam, appendages inconspicuous, white to pale yellow. Fruit: nutlets +- flattened, base truncate; abaxial ridge 0; adaxial attachment scar edges not raised, abutted near tip.