Echium vulgare

Biennial herb, 20–120 cm high, erect; branches 1–several from base, covered with coarse spreading or appressed broad-based hairs and finer, shorter hairs. Leaves densely hairy, apex acute or obtuse, margins entire; rosette leaves linear-oblanceolate, 5–15 cm long, 8–15 mm wide; cauline leaves linear-lanceolate, bases cuneate. Inflorescence conical, cymes dense; bracts usually longer than sepals. Sepals linear-lanceolate, 5–6 mm long, acute, elongating to c. 9 mm in fruit, hairy; corolla 12–15 mm long, hairy outside, glabrous inside except for some hairs around nectary scales, blue, lobes broad-ovate, 2–3 mm long, much shorter than tube; nectary scales 5, arranged around ovary; stamens inserted near throat, 4 long-exserted from corolla, dorsal one more or less included. Mericarps 2–3.5 mm long, rugose with scarcely pointed tubercles, pale brown. Flowers mainly Sep.–Feb.