Borage Family (Boraginaceæ)
(A) Forget-me-not (Myosotis scorpioides) (European). Forget-me-not is a common wild flower in Europe and Asia, and is in this country as an escape and fairly well established in Nova Scotia, New England, New York, and southward. The stem is rather stout but weak; it rises about a foot in height, and is smooth but the leaves are rough and hairy. The flowers are borne in one-sided curving terminal clusters. The five, broad, rounded petals are sky-blue with a yellow eye; the undeveloped buds are pink. There are several species of Myosotis, the present one having the largest and most beautiful flowers.
(B) Wild Comfrey (Cynoglossum virginianum) is a common, rough-stemmed perennial growing in deciduous woods from Me. to Mich. and southward. The tubular corolla is pale blue; it is set in a five-parted hairy calyx. The basal leaves are large and ovate; the stem ones clasp the flower stalk with somewhat heart-shaped bases.
(A) Blue-weed; Viper’s Bugloss (Echium vulgare) (European). This peculiar plant is locally abundant in dry fields and waste places in the East. It is regarded as a pest and is a difficult one to get rid of.
The stem is light green spotted with purple; it grows erect from 1 to 3 feet high. The flowers grow on leafy spikes springing from the stem near the top. When the first flowers appear, in June, they are close to the stalk at the base of the rolled-up, leafy spike. As they continue to bloom the spike gradually straightens and the open flowers appear farther and farther from t he stem. The showy, tubular corolla is bright blue, and is exceeded in length by the long stamens and three-parted style; the buds are pink.
(B) Small Bugloss (Lycopsis arvensis) (European). This is a very rough, bristly stemmed species, also naturalized from Europe, and now found in waste places near dwellings, from Me. to Minn. and south to Va. The lanceolate leaves are seated on the stem; they diminish to the size of bracts and pass into the racemes of small, tubular, violet-blue flowers.