Echium vulgare — known as viper's bugloss and blueweed[1] — is a species of flowering plant in the borage family Boraginaceae. It is native to most of Europe and western and central Asia[2][3] and it occurs as an introduced species in north-eastern North America, south-western South America and the South Island of New Zealand.[1][4] The plant root was used in ancient times as a treatment for snake or viper bites.[5] If eaten, the plant is toxic to horses and cattle through the accumulation of pyrrolizidine alkaloids in the liver.[6][7]

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Viper's bugloss
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
Clade:	Tracheophytes
Clade:	Angiosperms
Clade:	Eudicots
Clade:	Asterids
Order:	Boraginales
Family:	Boraginaceae
Genus:	Echium
Species:	E. vulgare
Binomial name
Echium vulgare L.

Description

It is a biennial or monocarpic perennial plant growing to 30–80 cm (12–31 in) tall, with rough, hairy, oblanceolate leaves.[8] The flowers start pink and turn vivid blue, and are 15–20 mm (0.59–0.79 in) in a branched spike, with all the stamens protruding. The pollen is blue[9] but the filaments of the stamens remain red, contrasting against the blue flowers. It flowers between May and September in the Northern Hemisphere. The Latin specific epithet vulgare means common.[5]

Distribution

It is native to Europe and temperate Asia. It has been introduced to Chile,[10] New Zealand[11] and North America, where it is naturalised in parts of the continent including northern Michigan,[3] being listed as an invasive species in Washington.[12] It is found in dry, calcareous grassland and heaths, bare and waste places, along railways and roadsides and on coastal cliffs, sand dunes and shingle.[13]

Cultivation

E. vulgare is cultivated as an ornamental plant, and numerous cultivars have been developed. The cultivar 'Blue Bedder' has gained the Royal Horticultural Society’s Award of Garden Merit.[14][15]

Gallery

• 
  Being pollinated by skipper butterflies
• 
  Illustration
• 
  Closeup of flower
• 
  Colonizing the banks of a Montreal city highway
• 
  White-tailed bumblebee

See also

• Monofloral honey
• North American nectar sources

References

• Blanchan, Neltje (2005). Wild Flowers Worth Knowing. Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.

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