The helicoid cyme of Anchusa officinalis
Spikes, racemes, corymbs — these are a few of the many types of inflorescences. Of all the different possibilities for the arrangement of flowers, my favourite is this: the helicoid cyme, an inflorescence often seen in members of the borage family.
This common bugloss grows in UBC’s Physic Garden, which is thematically centred on ancient European medicinal plants (hint: whenever you see a specific epithet on a plant that says “officinalis” or “officinale”, you can be assured that it was used in herbal medicines hundreds of years ago by Europeans).
In BPotD news, Dr. Scott Russell at the University of Oklahoma, author of the daily (and highly recommended) Scott’s Botanical Links, sent me a note highlighting that Botany Photo of the Day was highlighted by the Internet Scout Project in this week’s “The Scout Report”. A reader of The Scout Report (which you can subscribe to via email), Tim, also sent along the news. Thanks Scott and Tim!
Those pictures are great! Are they all by one photographer, or are they submitted by regular people?
Mustela, thank you. Unless otherwise noted in the text, I’ve taken the photograph. I’ve been too busy to set up a user submission scheme on Flickr, but I do have one set up on the garden’s discussion forums: Botany Photo of the Day Submissions. I think in July I’ll start featuring user-submitted photographs once a week.
Dear Sir.,
I very much like this Web, I’m not a botany student but i can see the web regularly.
This is very useful for all
Thanking you,
Vel M
Lovely picture, as always. I had a lot of trouble, some time ago, sourcing the plant that is commonly known as alkanet. I think it was A. officinalis, but I don’t remember. Anyway, the reason I wanted it was to use the roots as a dye, but I never did get any fleshy roots from any of the sources I tried.
I’d love to do a dyer’s garden somewhere …
How to obtained the seed of Anchusa officinalis ?
This page is really useful,thank you.If you add the
medical use,it will be better. I wish succes for you,thanks a lot.