ANCHUSA ITALICA

Family:- BORAGINACEAE

Common Name:- Large blue alkanet.

Synonyms:- Anchusa azurea.

Meaning:- Anchusa (Gr) Strangler or close. A name given by the Greek playwright

Aristophanes to an alkanet yielding red dye.

Italica (L) From Italy, Italian.

General description:- Perennial, with spreading (patent) dense bristly hairs

(hispid) rigid or soft, often tubercle-based.

Stems:-

a) 20-150 cm.

b) erect.

Leaves:-

1) Lamina:

a) (5-)10-30 x (1-)1.5-5 cm.

b) long-lance-shaped.

c) lower stalked.

Flowers:-

1) Cymes:

a) lax, much branched.

b) stalks (pedicels) 1-3 mm, up to 10(-15) mm in fruit.

2) Bracts:

a) shorter than the calyx.

3) Calyx:

a) 6-8 (-10) mm, up to 18 mm in fruit.

b) divided almost to the base into linear, acute lobes.

4) Corolla:

a) violet or deep blue.

b) tube, 6-10 mm, slightly exceeding or shorter than the calyx.

c) limb, (8-)10-15 mm diam.

d) stamens inserted at top of the tube, overlapping the scales.

Fruit:-

1) Nutlets:

a) (6-)7-10 x 2-3 mm.

b) oblong or oblong-obovoid.

c) erect.

Key features:-

1) Nutlets at least 6 mm.

2) Corolla-limb (8-)10-15 mm diam.

Habitat:- Cultivated, fallow and waste ground, open shrubby ground, roadsides,

olive groves. 0-1100 m.

Distribution:- Balearic Is. and S France eastwards to Turkey. Widespread and

common on Crete.

Flowering time:- Mar-June.

Photos by:- Steve Lenton