Family: Boraginaceae Juss.
Distribution: It occurs in North Africa, Middle-, South-, and East-Europe, on the islands in Mediterranean Sea, in temperate and subtropical zone of Asia; it was introduced to North America.
Ecology: A weed in fields and disturbed sites, usually in fairly moist soil. It grows on the rocks, rocky steppes, rarely on the sandbanks, namely in the zone from lowland till foothills. Flowers from May to August.
Description: Annual herb, stems scrambling-climbing, 30–120 cm long, hairless except for the short, backward-directed prickles along the angles on the stem. Leaves alternate, thin, rough-stiff-hairy and irregularly bristly-hairy on the edges, the lower oblanceolate, stalked, rarely as much as 10 cm long and 2,5 cm wide, often withering, the others gradually reduced, often becoming more elliptic and almost stalkless. Flowers blue, on short, stout, curved back stalks in or near the axils of the leaves or bracts, and in the forks of the branches. Calyx 5-lobed to about the middle, each lobe with a smaller tooth on each side near the base. Corolla 2–3 mm long and wide, broadly bell-shaped, with well-developed fornices, the anthers included. The fruits are 4 nutlets 2,5 mm long, enveloped by the calyx.
These images were taken in Czechia, Libochovice, Hazmburk (22. 4. 2007).
