Heliotropium lineare
Click on each image to see a larger version and details of the record
Image 1
Leaves
13 Dec 2008
Image 2
Habit
05 Mar 2009
Image 3
Leaves
05 Mar 2009
Image 4
Flowers
21 Mar 2008
Image 5
Flowers
23 Mar 2008
| Family: | Boraginaceae |
| Full name: | Heliotropium lineare (A.DC.) Gürke |
| ID status: | Fairly certain |
| Afrikaans common name(s): | Hamelstertjie, Smalblaar-hamelstertjie |
| English common name(s): | Narrow-leaved heliotropium |
| Synonym(s): | Heliophytum lineare A.DC. Heliotropium kuntzei Gürke Tournefortia linearis E.Mey. fide Fl. Cap. |
| Status: | Native |
| Description: | Erect perennial herb up to 45(60) cm high, with a thin rootstock and usually branched from the base; stem and branches angular, densely strigose with 2-armed trichomes. Leaves 18–60(75) x 1–4(8) mm, linear basal ones usually narrowly elliptic, rough on both surfaces, strigose with 2-armed trichomes on the midrib and also sometimes on the secondary nerves below, acute to obtuse at apex, gradually narrowed into a short petiole at base, with entire revolute margins. Cymes short, up to 9 cm long when completely expanded, lax, ebracteate, often 2–4 together on short terminal peduncles. Flowers sessile or subsessile. Calyx subglabrous outside, glabrous or subglabrous inside; lobes 1.0–1.8 mm long, narrowly ovate to narrowly triangular, subequal, acute to obtuse, erect. Corolla narrowly infundibuliform, white, cream or yellow, clothed with scale-like 2-armed trichomes outside, glabrous inside; tube (3)4–5 mm long; lobes 1.2–2.0 mm long, triangular-acuminate and with undulate margins, subequal. Stamens inserted about the middle of the corolla tube; anthers 1.0–1.3 mm long, narrowly oblong, apiculate, subsessile. Ovary ovoid, glabrous. Style 1.0–1.6 mm long, terete, glabrous; stigmatic ring c. 0.5 mm in diameter, well-marked; sterile appendix c. 1 mm long, conical, bi or 4-fid, glabrous. Fruits c. 2.0 x 3.5 x 2.0 mm, transversely ellipsoid, deeply depressed laterally, granulate-verrucose; nutlets free, usually narrowly winged, with the inner faces flat; each nutlet includes 2 cavities, the distal one ferule, the proximal one empty and usually smaller than the other. (from JSTOR website / Flora Zambesiaca) Stem woody, terete, up to 1 ft. high and 3 lin. in diam., adpressedly short hispid; leaves linear, usually 8 x 1.5 lin. (rarely larger), with more or less deciduous adpressed hairs all over the upper surface and on the nerves beneath; cymes (including the short peduncle) not exceeding 2 in. in length; calyx 0.5 lin. long, with short adpressed hairs outside; lobes oblong-ovate, apiculate; corolla cream-coloured (Bowker), much longer than the calyx; tube cylindrical, 2 lin. long; lobes triangular, acuminate, 0.75 lin. long; stamens inserted about the middle of the corolla-tube; anthers membranous, lanceolate, apiculate; style about 1 lin. long, with a central disc, tapering downwards, tapering upwards into the bifid apex; nutlets with two large smooth flat and one small tubercled convex side. (from JSTOR website / Flora Capensis) |
| Link(s) |
African Plant Database
JSTOR Plant Science Kew Herbarium Catalogue BGBM Berlin-Dahlem - Virtual Herbarium Züricher Herbarien Flora of Zimbabwe Fleurs de notre Terre - Galerie Namibie |
| Content last updated: | 22 Nov 2011 |
