Common Name: HELIOTROPE FAMILY
Habit: Annual or perennial herb [shrub, tree, woody vine], generally hairy, often bristly or strigose and/or glandular. Stem: prostrate to erect, branched. Leaf: simple, alternate, generally entire; stipules 0. Inflorescence: 1-many cymes, generally coiled, or flowers 1. Flower: generally bisexual, generally radial; calyx lobes 5, generally free to base; corolla lobes 5, fused, generally rotate or bell-shaped, appendages 0; stamens 5, epipetalous; ovary superior, subtended by disk-like nectary, chambers generally 4, style terminal, stigmatic head conical with basal ring-shaped stigma and sterile tip. Fruit: dry or fleshy, generally 4-seeded, sometimes separating into 1--4 nutlets.
Genera In Family: 4 genera, +- 450 species; worldwide distribution, especially in tropics and subtropics. Note: Included in Boraginaceae in TJM2 and some other treatments (Angiosperm Phylogeny Group IV 2016 Bot Linn Soc 181:1--20) but treated as separate family by Boraginales Working Group (Luebert et al. 2016).
eFlora Treatment Author: Michael G. Simpson

Common Name: HELIOTROPE
Habit: Annual, perennial herb [shrub], glabrous to bristly or strigose. Stem: prostrate to erect, branched. Leaf: generally cauline, petioled to sessile, generally entire. Inflorescence: flower 1 in axils or many in terminal coiled spike-like cymes. Flower: corolla rotate to bell-shaped, white to purple; stamens attached on upper tube, included, anthers +- sessile; style 0 or not lobed, stigma 1, linear to disk-like. Fruit: nutlets 2 or 4, erect, generally ovoid to spheric, smooth, roughened, or hairy, scar generally lateral.
Etymology: (Greek: sun turning, from some species flowering at summer solstice)
eFlora Treatment Author: Ronald B. Kelley & Dieter H. Wilken
Unabridged Reference: Ewan 1942 Bull So Calif Acad Sci 41: 51--57