Flora Medica

BORAGINACE.E.Nat. syst.ed. 2. p. 274.BORAGO.Sepals 5, equal, spreading. Corolla rotate, with 5 flat spreadinglobes, with 5 erect appendages or valves (sterile stamens),arising from the throat. Anthers sagittate. Nuts ovate, rugose,converging.984. B. officinalis Linn, sp.pl. 197. E. Bot. t. 36. SmithEng. Fl. i. 264. Common in many places by roadsides, and inwaste ground. (Borage.)Root tapering, mucilaginous, as well as the herbage, which is clothedall over with very pungent bristles. Stem branched \\ or 2 feet high,round, spreading, leafy. Leaves alternate, ovate, wavy, and more orless toothed ; the lower ones broadest, and stalked. Flowers numerous,in terminal drooping bunches, very beautiful. Corolla an inchbroad, of a most brilliant blue ; pink in the bud. Valves and anthersprominent, blackish. Fruit wrinkled and warty, of a light shiningbrown. The whole plant has an odour approaching to Cucumber andBurnet, which gives a flavour to a cool tankard ;but its supposedexhilarating qualities, which caused Borage to be reckoned one of thefour cordial flowers, along with Alkanet, Roses, and Violets, mayjustly be doubted. Smith. It was once esteemed as a pectoralmedicine, and a decoction of its leaves mixed with honey makes agood ptisan.TRICHODESMA.Calyx 5-parted. Corolla somewhat rotate ; throat naked ;segments of the limb subulate at the point. Stamens very muchprotruding filaments : very short anthers ; adhering by 2 rowsof dorsal hairs, with subulate twisted aristae. Stigma nearlysimple. Nuts half immersed in the hollows of a 4- winged column,adnate near the point.RBr.985. T. zeylanica RBr. prodr. 352. Borago zeylanicaLinn. mant. 202. Jacq. ic. rar. ii. t. 314. Burnt, ind. 41. t. 14.f. 2. Various parts of the East Indies ;the tropical part ofNew Holland.An annual, with the stem hispid with stiff pellucid bristly hairs;growing from 4 to as much as 8 feet high. Leaves opposite, subsessile,lanceolate, sparingly hispid those under the flowers alternate, ; small,cordate-lanceolate. Peduncles nearly solitary, 1-flowered, drooping,longer than the floral leaves, round and hairy. Flowers pale blue.Calyx with 5 elevated ridges proceeding from its recesses, expanding onthe fruit. Segments of the corolla broad, cordate with attenuated points.483 i I 2