LXI. BORRAGINACEÆ.
Scabrous-pubescent trees or shrubs, with watery juice, and terete branchlets. Leaves simple, alternate or subverticillate, penniveined, persistent or tardily deciduous, without stipules. Flowers regular, perfect, in terminal or axillary dichotomous often scorpioid-branched cymes; calyx usually 5-lobed, persistent under the fruit; corolla hypogynous, 5-lobed, the lobes imbricated in the bud; stamens 5, inserted on the tube of the corolla opposite its lobes; filaments filiform; anthers introrse, 2-celled, the cells opening longitudinally; pistil of 2 carpels; ovary undivided (in the arborescent genera of the United States), sessile on the hypogynous inconspicuous disk, more or less completely 4-celled; style single, 2-branched or parted toward the apex; stigmas clavate or capitate; ovule solitary in each cell. Fruit drupaceous (in the arborescent genera of the United States), tipped with the remnants of the style, with 2—4 nutlets or cells. Seeds ascending; seed-coat membranaceous.
The Borage family with ninety-five genera, mostly of herbaceous plants, is widely distributed and most abundant in temperate regions, especially in the Mediterranean basin and central Asia.
CONSPECTUS OF THE ARBORESCENT GENERA OF THE UNITED STATES.
Branches of the style 2-branched; fruit partly or entirely inclosed in the enlarged calyx.1. [Cordia.] Branches of the style not branched; fruit not inclosed in the calyx. Calyx valvately splitting into 5 minute teeth; fruit with 2—4 1-seeded nutlets.2. [Beureria.] Calyx 5-parted or cleft, the divisions imbricated in the bud; fruit with 2 2-seeded nutlets.3. [Ehretia.]