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, https://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/eflora_display.php?tid=59910, accessed on January 18, 2021.
Citation for the whole project: Jepson Flora Project (eds.) 2021, Jepson eFlora, https://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/eflora/, accessed on January 18, 2021.
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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).