G.Don
Description
Cynoglossum wallichii is a widespread Asian herb recorded across China, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Bhutan and Afghanistan, with naturalised or casual occurrences in the United States and parts of Europe. GBIF treats the name as a synonym, with Cynoglossum wallichii accepted under that combination. It occupies open hill slopes, forest margins, grassy clearings, fallow ground and roadside banks from about 1500 to 3500 m. The depicted plant from the Mandakini valley in Garhwal, India, at around 2900 m and flowering in June, is characteristic of its preference for disturbed, sunny temperate slopes during the early monsoon.
The plant is an erect annual or biennial herb, the stems simple or branched above and clothed, like the foliage, in appressed to spreading hispid hairs. The leaves are alternate, the lower oblanceolate and narrowed to a petiole, the upper sessile, lanceolate and somewhat clasping. The inflorescence consists of elongating, ebracteate scorpioid cymes bearing small, pale to bright blue, salverform to funnelform flowers with prominent fornices closing the throat. The fruit separates into four ovoid nutlets densely covered with glochidiate (barbed) bristles, an epizoochorous adaptation that promotes dispersal on animal fur.
The epithet honours Nathaniel Wallich, the Danish botanist whose Himalayan collections underpin much early taxonomy of the region. Within Cynoglossum the species belongs to a critical complex whose delimitation has prompted segregation into related genera such as Lindelofia and Paracaryum. The barbed nutlets account for its readiness to colonise trampled and grazed ground, and its weedy tendencies explain the scattered extra-Asian records; it is of no conservation concern.
Author: G.Don · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of China Vol. 16, Flora of Pakistan, Flora of Nepal, A Revision of Cynoglossum (Boraginaceae) (Brand)