Common Name: BORAGE or WATERLEAF FAMILY
Habit: Annual to shrub or small tree, or non-green root parasite, often bristly or sharp-hairy. Stem: prostrate to erect. Leaf: basal and/or cauline, generally simple, generally alternate. Inflorescence: generally cymes, or panicle-, raceme-, head-, or spike-like, generally coiled in flower (often described as scorpioid), generally elongating in fruit, or flowers 1--2 per axil. Flower: bisexual, generally radial; sepals (4)5(10), fused at least at base, or free; corolla (4)5(10)-lobed, salverform, funnel-shaped, rotate, or bell-shaped, generally without scales at tube base, with 0 or 5 appendages at tube top, alternate stamens; stamens epipetalous; ovary generally superior, entire to 4-lobed, style 1(2), entire or 2-lobed or -branched. Fruit: valvate or circumscissile capsule or nutlets 1--4, free (fused), smooth to roughened, prickly or bristly or not.
Genera In Family: +- 120 genera, +- 2300 species: tropics, temperate, especially western North America, Mediterranean; some cultivated (Borago, Heliotropium, Echium, Myosotis, Nemophila, Phacelia, Symphytum, Wigandia). Toxicity: Many genera may be TOXIC from pyrrolizidine alkaloids or accumulated nitrates. Note: Recently treated to include Hydrophyllaceae, Lennoaceae. Wigandia urens added, as naturalized.
eFlora Treatment Author: Ronald B. Kelley, Robert Patterson, Richard R. Halse & Timothy C. Messick, family description, key to genera, treatment of genera by Ronald B. Kelley, except as noted
Scientific Editor: Ronald B. Kelley, Robert Patterson, Thomas J. Rosatti, Bruce G. Baldwin, David J. Keil.

Common Name: FIDDLENECK
Habit: Annual; hairs generally bristly, often bulbous-based. Stem: generally erect, 2--12 dm, generally green. Leaf: basal and cauline, alternate, sessile or lower short-petioled, generally linear to narrow-lanceolate or -oblong, generally not succulent, +- entire. Inflorescence: spike-like cymes, generally +- terminal, tip coiled. Flower: generally radial; calyx lobes 5 or 2--4 (see key); corolla tube generally not constricted, generally orange or yellow (red-orange), appendages generally 0, throat generally open, glabrous, limb on large-flowered taxa generally with 5 dark spots. Fruit: nutlets erect, +- triangular, adaxially generally with exposed elliptic attachment scar, generally with rounded or sharp tubercles.
Species In Genus: 14 species: western North America, southwestern South America, widely alien elsewhere. Etymology: (W. Amsinck, patron of Hamburg Botanic Garden, 1752--1831) Note: Self-compatible; often heterostylous; large-flowered taxa generally cross-pollinated, small-flowered self-pollinated.
eFlora Treatment Author: Ronald B. Kelley & Fred R. Ganders
Unabridged Reference: Ray & Chisaki 1957 Amer J Bot 44:529--554; Suksdorf 1931 Werdenda 1:47--113; Kelley & Seiber 1992 Phytochemistry 31:2369--2387