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.
Habit: Perennial herb [annual], +- scapose, base bulb-like or from tubers [taproot]; herbage +- glabrous to generally sparse-soft-hairy. Stem: erect. Leaf: basal long-petioled, reniform to round, shallow-lobed or toothed; cauline few, reduced, alternate [generally opposite]. Inflorescence: open; pedicels present. Flower: corolla > calyx, bell- to funnel-shaped, white, generally yellow in throat; stamens included, subequal; ovary chambers appearing 2, style 1, thread-like, included, +- 2-lobed. Fruit: capsule, oblong to ovoid to obovoid. Seed: many, ovoid, angled, brown, pitted. Species In Genus: 5 species: California, Alaska, Montana, western Canada. Etymology: (Count N.P. Romanzoff, 1754--1826, promoter of Russian expedition to California in 1816) eFlora Treatment Author: Robert Patterson & Richard R. Halse
Romanzoffia tracyi Jeps.
NATIVE Habit: Plant 2--12 cm, in rounded tufts; tubers clustered, ovoid, brown, tomentose. Leaf: petioles 1--8 cm, soft-hairy, widened at base, not overlapped; blades 10--35 mm wide, +- glabrous to soft-hairy. Inflorescence: dense, not or +- exceeding leaves; pedicels stout, < 1 cm in fruit. Flower: calyx lobes 2--5 mm, lanceolate, acute, soft-hairy; corolla 6--8 mm; ovary soft-hairy, style 2--3 mm. Fruit: 5--8 mm. Chromosomes: n=11. Ecology: Rocky ocean bluffs; Elevation: < 30 m. Bioregional Distribution: NCo; Distribution Outside California: to British Columbia. Flowering Time: Mar--May Jepson eFlora Author: Robert Patterson & Richard R. Halse Index of California Plant Names (ICPN; linked via the Jepson Online Interchange) Listed on CNPS Rare Plant Inventory Previous taxon: Romanzoffia sitchensis Next taxon: Symphytum
Citation for this treatment: Robert Patterson & Richard R. Halse 2012, Romanzoffia tracyi, in Jepson Flora Project (eds.) Jepson eFlora, https://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/eflora_display.php?tid=41555, accessed on March 09, 2021.
Citation for the whole project: Jepson Flora Project (eds.) 2021, Jepson eFlora, https://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/, accessed on March 09, 2021.
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Duplicates counted once; synonyms included.
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Blue line denotes eFlora flowering time (fruiting time in some monocot genera).