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Viper's Bugloss
Echium vulgare L.
45.0689, 13.6279
Field Notes
Description:
It is a biennial or monocarpic perennial plant growing to 30 – 80 cm tall, with rough, hairy, lanceolate leaves. The flowers start pink and turn vivid blue and are 15 – 20 mm in a branched spike, with all the stamens protruding. The pollen is blue but the filaments of the stamens remain red, contrasting against the blue flowers. It flowers between May and September.
Habitat:
Native to most of Europe, and western and central Asia. It is found in dry, bare and waste places, my spotting was in an ancient Roman quarry.
Notes:
Echium is grown as an oilseed crop because of the fatty acid composition of the seed oil. Like borage and evening primrose oil, it contains significant amounts of gamma linolenic acid (GLA), but it also contains the rarer stearidonic acid (SdA).
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