Sunday, July 25, 2010

salt heliotrope ~ 07/25/10 ~ Shoreline Park


salt heliotrope
Heliotropium curassavicum
Boraginaceae

I didn't believe our new orchid friend, but he was correct and this belongs to the borage family along with fiddlenecks and forget-me-nots. This heliotrope has several common names, including seaside heliotrope, quail plant, and Chinese pusley. I think the Chinese parsley was misread somewhere and is now also considered a common name.

4 comments:

John W. Wall said...

That's funny. I just found some of this growing much more sparsely (or should I say spusley?) down at Pt. Reyes. I figured it was a borage, but I couldn't get any further until a botanist at Marin CNPS gave me the ID.

Cindy said...

Amazingly, I have also just recently noticed and wondered about this plant at my local arboretum (where it wasn't labeled, of course!) I especially like how the flowers are graduated in size, very fun to look at!

Thanks for commenting on my blog. As you probably already know, I have just recently changed templates, and finally put my followers up for all to see!

Pat said...

Hello, Katie!

Thanks for your comment on my blog; Thursday post.

The shadows are from the sun; same source as for the air conditioners' shadows.

Katie (Nature ID) said...

This heliotrope is distinctive.

John, I like your mellow humor.

Cindy, your praying insect posts were fun reads.

Bibi, I tweeted your cool sundial post.