ANCHUSA ITALICA

Family and Genus:- See- BORAGINACEAE

Common Name:- Large blue alkanet.

Homotypic 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:-

1) 20-150 cm, erect.

Leaves:-

1) (5-)10-30 x (1-)1.5-5 cm, long-lanceolate. lower petiolate.

Flowers:-

1) Cymes, lax, much branched.

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

2) Bracts, shorter than the calyx.

3) Calyx, 6-8 (-10) mm, up to 18 mm in fruit, divided almost to the base into linear,

acute lobes.

4) Corolla, 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, (6-)7-10 x 2-3 mm, oblong or oblong-obovoid, erect.

Key features:-

1) Nutlets, at least 6 mm.

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

Click here for a glossary of terms used.

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