ECHIUM PLANTAGINEUM

Including Echium vulgare

Family:- BORAGINACEAE

Common Names:- Purple Viper’s-bugloss, Salvation Jane.

Synonyms:- Echium creticum subsp. plantagineum.

Meaning:- Echium (Gr) Viper, a name used by the Greek physician Dioscorides'

for a plant that was used to cure snakebite.

Plantagineum (L) Rib-wort-like, plantain-like.

General description:- Erect, softly hairy, annual or biennial, with 1 to many

flowering stems, forming a broad dome or pyramid shape in flower.

Stems:-

1) 20-60 cm., erect. sometims branched from the base.

Leaves:-

1) Basal, 5-14 x c. 1.5 cm., ovate, with prominent lateral veins and soft appressed

bristly-hairs.

2) Cauline, oblong to lanceolate, more or less cordate at the base, and semi-

amplexicaul.

3) Uppermost sessile.

Flowers:-

1) Inflorescence, usually branched.

2) Calyx, 7-10 mm at anthesis, up to 15 mm in fruit.

3) Corolla, 8-30 mm. infundibuliform, blue becoming pink through purple. hairy on

the veins and margins only. usually with 2 exserted stamens.

Fruit:-

1) Nutlets, ovoid-obtusely trigonous. erect, rugose with a flat base.

Key features:-

1) Corolla 11-40 mm; subglabrous, hairy on veins and the margins only.

2) Basal leaves usually broadly ovate to spathulate with prominent lateral veins.

Habitat:- Coastal habitats, dry open shrubby vegetation, roadsides, olive groves,

wasteground, 0-600(-1000) m.

Distribution:- Throughout Greece but less common in the interior N. - Native in the

Mediterranean. area and W Europe, introduced as a weed in other parts of the world

with a Mediterranen-type climate. Widespread and common on Crete.

Flowering time:- Mid-March to early June.

Photos by:- Steve Lenton

ECHIUM VULGARE

Synonyms:- None

Meaning:- Vulgare (L) Vulgar, common.

Resembling Echium plantagineum, but differering in the following characters:

1) Biennial.

2) More hispid-pubescent.

3) Inflorescence cylindrical, with many short cymes.

4) At least the lower bracts large and leaf-like.

5) Corolla somewhat smaller, puberulent on the outer surface, with 4 or 5 long-

exserted stamens.

6) Stem with small brownish maculatus.

Habitat:- Dry pastures, open deciduous scrub, roadside gravel, (0-1200) m

Distribution:- A widespread Euro-Siberian species and an invasive weed. e.g. in

E North America and New Zeaiand.

Recently discovered (June 2023) on Katharo east Crete by Marinos Gogolas.

Flowering time:- Mid-May to early August.

Photos by Steve Lenton,