Family |
Boraginaceae
Heliotropium bovei
Boiss.
Heliotropium bovei Boiss.
(Diagn. Pl. Orient. 11: 87, 1849; Nouvelle Flore du Liban et de la Syrie, vol. 3, p. 52; Pl. XXVII nº 6; 1983)
• Life-form & habit: Annual, 20–40 cm tall, canescent-velvety with very appressed white hairs; stems prostrate or ascending, much branched from the base.
• Leaves: Petiolate, ovate-obtuse, strongly veined, covered with appressed pubescence.
• Inflorescence & flowers: Cymes solitary or paired, uniseriate, elongating and lax at maturity. Calyx tomentose-white, lobes lanceolate, obtuse, equalling the corolla tube. Corolla hairy outside, glabrous within; limb equalling tube, lobes ovate, obtuse, sometimes denticulate in the sinuses. Anthers linear, inserted below mid-tube, apex deflexed inward. Style nearly obsolete; stigma long-conical, attenuate, hispid at the summit, slightly recurved inward.
• Fruit: Nutlets rugose, tuberculate, glabrous or minutely hispid.
• Phenology: Flowers May–September.
• Habitat & elevation: Cultivated fields, disturbed ground, waste places; lowland and foothill zones.
• Lebanese distribution: Saida, Beirut, Tripoli, Bsarma, Chtaura (Blanche, Post, Mouterde, Sam).
• Syrian distribution: Baalbeck, Damascus, Latakia, Tartous, Homs, Hama, Idlib, Afrine, Maaret-en-No‘mane, Palmyra, Zebdani, Bloudane, Qatana, Tell Bisri, Qala‘at el-Hosn.
• Native range: Iraq, Lebanon–Syria, Palestine, Sinai, Turkey (POWO).
• Introduced into: Germany (POWO).
⚠️ Diagnostic note: Separated from the sympatric H. lasiocarpum and H. schweinfurthii by its very appressed white pubescence, ovate-obtuse leaves with strong venation, uniseriate cymes, and nearly obsolete style with long conical stigma.