Flowers in Israel: Anchusa milleri

Anchusa milleri, Anchusa ryssosperma, Alkanet, Bugloss, Oxtongue,

Hebrew: לשון-הפר המדברית, Arabic: لسان الثور الميلري

Scientific name:   Anchusa milleri Lam. ex Spreng.
Synonym name:   Anchusa ryssosperma Steud. ex A.Rich
Common name:   Alkanet, Bugloss, Oxtongue
Hebrew name:   לשון-פר מדברית, לשון-הפר המדברית
Arabic name:   لسان الثور الميلري
Family:   Boraginaceae, Forget-me-not family, זיפניים


Life form:   Annual
Stems:   10-50 cm high; stems simple or branched, procumbent
Leaves:   Alternate, entire, oblanceolate to oblong, covered with short hairs and long bristles, margin smooth; apex obtuse to acute; base attenuate; upper leaves sessile
Inflorescence:   Leafy, raceme-like, and lax in fruit; hermaphrodite
Flowers:   bracteate, and pedicellate. Bracts, foliose, sessile; pedicel 3-8 mm, elongate in fruit; calyx 5-7 mm, divided almost to base; lobes, linear, and not accrescent in fruit; corolla 1-1.3 cm, white or pinkish; tube 7-9 mm, straight; scales, 0.5 mm, inserted at the corolla-throat, exserted, oblong, velutinous, the tips curved outwards; limb 4-5 mm broad, slightly zygomorphic; lobes 1.5-2 mm, broadly obovate; stamens inserted at the middle of the tube, in 2 series of 2 and 3; anthers 1 mm, oblong- elliptic, obtuse; ovary glabrous; style 2-2.5 mm, slender, glabrous; stigma 2-lobed
Fruits / pods:   4 Nutlets, 3.5-4 x 2-2.5mm, erect or slightly oblique; inner face is flat, outer face is convex, and reticulate-ribbed; ribs, smooth, yellowish-brown, glabrous
Flowering Period:   March, April
Habitat:   Shrub-steppes, Desert
Distribution:   Mediterranean Woodlands and Shrublands, Semi-steppe shrublands, Shrub-steppes, Deserts and extreme deserts
Chorotype:   Irano-Turanian – Saharo-Arabian
Summer shedding:   Ephemeral


Derivation of the botanical name:

Anchusa, αγχουσα, a plant used for cosmetic as a rouge, perhaps Anchusa tinctoria.

milleri, named for Gerrit Smith Miller, Jr. (1869 – 1956), an American zoologist and botanist.
ryssosperma, rysso ???, sperma, “a seed”.
The Hebrew name: לשון-פר, lashon-par, ‘ox-tongue’, the leaves have raised spots with short, hooked bristles, giving the leaves a very rough feeling (like an ox’s tongue, hence the name).

  • The standard author abbreviation Lam. is used to indicate Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744–1829), a French botanist.
  • The standard author abbreviation Spreng. is used to indicate Curt Polycarp Joachim Sprengel (1766 – 1833), a German botanist and physician.
  • The standard author abbreviation Steud. is used to indicate Ernst Gottlieb von Steudel (1783 – 1856), a German physician and an authority on grasses.
  • The standard author abbreviation Rich. is used to indicate Louis Claude Marie Richard (1754 – 1821), a French botanist and botanical illustrator.