Plantinvasivekruger - Boraginaceae - Heliotropium indicum L.

HEOIN

Boraginaceae

Heliotropium indicum L.

indicum: of India

Heliotropium indicum is an annual or short-lived perennial herb, up to 150 cm tall, with a white or brown taproot. The stems are erect, grooved, hollow and hairy. The leaves are simple and alternate to sub-opposite; the leaf blades are triangular-ovate with an acute apex and a sub-truncate base extending down the long petiole; the upper surface is wrinkled and with scattered bristles, somewhat more hairy below; venation is pinnate (4-7 pairs). The flowers are arranged along one side of a curling elongated inflorescence; they are pale violet or blue with a yellow throat but fade to dull white; the lowest flowers open first. The fruit divides into two nutlets.

Terrestrial erect herb, up to 150 cm tall.

Taproot, white or brown.

Inflorescence terminal, simple or rarely once-forked, flowers along one side, sessile, tip coiled, axis up to 36 cm long; lowest flowers opening first.

Flowers pale violet (lilac) with a yellow throat, but fading to dull white, calyx-lobes linear-lanceolate, ciliate, 2 mm long; corolla-tube 4-5 mm long (5 fused petals); lobes rounded.

Fruits deeply bilobed with diverging beaked lobes, c. 4 × 4 × 2.5 mm, almost hairless, ovoid, ribbed, separating into 2 nutlets each 2-celled, 3-3.5 mm long.

Annual or short-lived perennial. Reproduces by seeds which are produced in quantity on the long, curled, one-sided spikes.

Usually associated with the moist rich soils of the lowland tropics near rivers and lakes, on dikes and roadsides, and in waste places, fallow rice fields, pools, ditches, or muddy soils which dry out periodically. The plant prospers in open sunny areas. It may also be found in moist sandy soils or in shallow swamp.

Origin uncertain (probably a native of tropical America).

-Grard, P., Homsombath, K., Kessler, P., Khuon, E., Le Bourgeois, T., Prosperi, J. & Ridsdale, C. 2006. OSWALD V.1.0. A Multimedia identification system of the major weeds of rice paddy fields of Cambodia and Lao P.D.R. CIRAD, Montpellier, France.
-Hyde, M.A., Wursten, B.T. & Ballings, P. (2013). Flora of Zimbabwe: Species information: Heliotropium indicum.
-Pacific Island Ecosystems at Risk.

http://www.zimbabweflora.co.zw/speciesdata/species.php?species_id=148360
http://www.hear.org/pier/species/heliotropium_indicum.htm