The orders are: 1, Cordiaceæ; 2. Boraginaceæ; 3, Verbenaceæ; 4, Labiatæ; 5, Selaginaceæ; 6. Globulariaceæ; 7, Stilbaceæ.
Order 1. Cordiaceæ unites Convolvulaceæ and Boraginaceæ. Tree-like plants with 5-(4–10) merous flowers, doubly bifid style, and drupe with 4 or less loculi. No endosperm; cotyledons folded.—185 species; tropical.
Order 2. Boraginaceæ. The vegetative parts are very characteristic: herbs with cylindrical stems and scattered, undivided, nearly always sessile, entire leaves, without stipules, and generally, together with the other green portions of the plant, covered with stiff hairs, consequently rough and often even stinging (hence the other name for the order Asperifoliæ). The inflorescences are unipared scorpioid cymes with the branches coiled spirally (“helicoid,” Fig. [573]) before the flowers open. The flower is perfect, regular (obliquely zygomorphic in Echium and Anchusa arvensis), hypogynous, gamopetalous: S5, P5 (often with ligular outgrowths), A5, G2, but each of the two loculi of the ovary becomes divided by a false partition-wall into two, each of which contains one pendulous anatropous ovule with the micropyle turned upwards; the four loculi arch upwards, so that the ovary becomes 4-lobed, and the style is then, as in the Borageæ, placed at the base (“gynobasic”) between the four projections (Figs. [572], [573]). The fruit is a 4-partite schizocarp with four nut-like fruitlets (Fig. [572]).—Endosperm is wanting (except in Heliotropium); the radicle is turned upwards.
The INFLORESCENCES are often double unipared scorpioid cymes; the bud of the second bracteole is developed, that of the first suppressed; in some cases both the bracteoles are suppressed (Myosotis, Omphalodes, etc.), but in other instances all the first bracteoles (a) only are suppressed, and the others are then situated in two rows towards the under side of the coiled axis, while the flowers are situated on the upper side. Displacement of the branches or of the floral-leaves sometimes takes place. The flowers are often red at first, and later on become blue or violet; they hardly ever have any smell. The fruit entirely resembles that of the Labiatæ, but the radicle of the latter is turned downwards. The fruitlets present small differences which have systematic importance; they are hollow or flat at the base, attached to a flat or columnar receptacle, etc.
1. Heliotropieæ. This group deviates from the characteristics mentioned above in the undivided ovary and terminal (“apical”) style. In this, as well as in the fact that in some genera (Tournefortia, Ehretia, etc.) the fruit is a drupe, it connects this order with the Cordiaceæ. Heliotropium, Tiaridium, and others have schizocarps.
2. Borageæ, Borage Group. Style gynobasic; fruit a schizocarp.
A. The throat of the corolla is without ligules, or with very small ones.—Pulmonaria (Lung-wort); funnel-shaped corolla; a whorl of hairs in the corolla-throat.—Echium (Viper’s-bugloss) has zygomorphic flowers, the plane of symmetry almost coinciding with that of the very well-developed inflorescence (through the fourth sepal); the corolla is obliquely funnel-shaped, the style is more deeply cleft at the apex than in the others; stamens 2 longer, 2 shorter, and 1 still shorter.—Cerinthe has a tubular corolla with five small teeth and two bilocular fruitlets. The bracts are large and leafy, and, like all the rest of the plant, are almost glabrous.—A few Lithospermum-species have a naked corolla-throat; others have small hairy ligules, which do not close the corolla-throat. The fruitlets are as hard as stone, owing to the presence of carbonate of lime and silica.—Mertensia (Steenhammera); Arnebia; Nonnea (small ligules).
B. The corolla-throat is closed by, or in any case provided with ligules, i.e. scale-like bodies or small protuberances, situated in the throat of the corolla opposite the petals, and which are invaginations or internal spurs of the petals (Fig. [572] D).—The nuts in Cynoglossum (Hound’s-tongue) bear hooked bristles over the entire surface, or, in Echinospermum, only on the edge. The following have smooth nuts:—Symphytum (Comfrey) has a cylindrical, campanulate corolla, and prolonged-triangular, pointed ligules.—Borago (Borage) has a rotate corolla with projecting, emarginate ligules; the stamens have a horn-like appendage, projecting upwards from the back of the filament. The fruitlets are hollow below.—Anchusa (Alkanet, Fig. [572]). The corolla is salver-shaped; the ligules small, hairy protuberances. A. (Lycopsis) arvensis has an S-curved corolla-tube.—Myosotis (Forget-me-not, Fig. [573]); rotate corolla with small (yellow) protuberances in the throat; scorpioid cyme without floral-leaves; fruitlets flat.—Omphalodes; fruitlets hollow at the back, with a scarious, turned-in, toothed edge.—Asperugo (Mad-wort); the calyx grows after flowering, becoming large, compressed, and deeply bifid.
Fig. 572.—Anchusa officinalis: A diagram; the brocteole a is suppressed (dotted); β supports a flower. B, C Myosotis, the fruit, entire and with the calyx in longitudinal section. D, F Alkanna tinctoria: D the corolla opened (4/1); e the ligule; f, g the anthers; E gyncœceum (3/1); F fruit, with three fruitlets; i an aborted loculus; h disc.