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: 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. Species In Genus: +- 250 species: temperate, tropics. Ornamental, cultivated for medicinal drugs. 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
Heliotropium convolvulaceum (Nutt.) A. Gray var. californicum (Greene) I.M. Johnst.
NATIVE Habit: Annual, taprooted. Stem: ascending to erect, 7--18 cm, canescent. Leaf: 1--4 cm, elliptic to ovate, generally petioled, acute, dense-strigose. Inflorescence: flowers 1 in axils. Flower: opening late afternoon, closing next morning, +- fragrant; calyx lobes lanceolate, long-tapered, dense-spreading-bristly; corolla 7--10 mm, 8--15+ mm diam, wide-bell-shaped to salverform, papery, white, tube long-exserted, constricted, throat swollen, green-yellow; anthers in throat. Fruit: nutlets 4, long-soft-hairy. Chromosomes: 2n=42. Ecology: Sandy soils, dunes; Elevation: < 700 m. Bioregional Distribution: D; Distribution Outside California: western Arizona, northern Mexico. Flowering Time: Apr--Oct Note: Typical variety to Great Plains. Synonyms: Heliotropium californicum Greene; Euploca convolvulacea subsp. californica (Greene) Abrams Jepson eFlora Author: Ronald B. Kelley & Dieter H. Wilken Index of California Plant Names (ICPN; linked via the Jepson Online Interchange) Previous taxon: Heliotropium amplexicaule Next taxon: Heliotropium curassavicum var. oculatum
Botanical illustration including Heliotropium convolvulaceum var. californicum
Citation for this treatment: Ronald B. Kelley & Dieter H. Wilken 2012, Heliotropium convolvulaceum var. californicum, in Jepson Flora Project (eds.) Jepson eFlora, /eflora/eflora_display.php?tid=59910, accessed on February 26, 2020.
Citation for the whole project: Jepson Flora Project (eds.) 2020, Jepson eFlora, https://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/, accessed on February 26, 2020.
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(Note: any qualifiers in the taxon distribution description, such as 'northern', 'southern', 'adjacent' etc., are not reflected in the map above, and in some cases indication of a taxon in a subdivision is based on a single collection or author-verified occurence).
Data provided by the participants of the
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MAP LEGEND View all CCH records All markers link to CCH specimen records. The original determination is shown in the popup window.
Blue markers indicate specimens that map to one of the expected Jepson geographic subdivisions (see left map). Purple markers indicate specimens collected from a garden, greenhouse, or other non-wild location.
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CCH collections by month
Duplicates counted once; synonyms included.
Species do not include records of infraspecific taxa, if there are more than 1 infraspecific taxon in CA.
Blue line denotes eFlora flowering time (fruiting time in some monocot genera).
