Compilation
Borraginoides physaloides

Perennial herb with 1-several erect stems up to 50(60) cm. from rootstock, usually unbranched except for the inflorescence but sometimes with few sterile axillary shoots; stems ± glabrous or with sparse setae on lower internodes. Leaves (1)2–6(9) x (0.2)0.5–2.5(3.5) cm. or rarely (on sterile shoots) up to 11 x 4.2 cm., variable in shape from broadly ovate or broadly elliptic to lanceolate or linear-lanceolate or linear-elliptic, acute at the apex except in some basal leaves, cuneate to rounded at the base, ± sessile, lower ones opposite and uppermost usually alternate, the upper surface usually fairly densely clothed with tubercles which may sometimes bear minute setae, the lower surface with such tubercles inconspicuous or lacking or with them conspicuous usually only on the main veins and at the margins. Inflorescences 2–30 cm. long, with 2–9(12) primary branches each bearing 1–8(12) flowers; primary branches usually subtended by very reduced leaves but individual cymes ebracteate; pedicels 1–2.5(3.2) cm. in flower, elongating up to 4.5 cm. in fruit, glabrous or with a few tubercles just below the flower. Sepals (8)10–16(18) x (3)3.5–6(7) mm. in flower, lanceolate to sometimes ovate, enlarging to up to 27 x 22 mm. in fruit and then rounded to cordate at the base, glabrous or with tubercles at the base and round the margin and sometimes sparsely on the surfaces also. Corolla (13)15–22(25) mm. long, the lobes scarcely spreading (in herbarium specimens the sepals fully visible in flowers pressed from the side) and broadly rounded to truncate above with a short apical cusp, in most of its range with a dense line of hairs down the middle of each lobe outside but sometimes glabrous, (in Zimbabwe and S. Africa more commonly glabrous); lobes white or sometimes cream or pink-tinged, the tube white with brown markings at the sinus between lobes. Fruit a single discoid nutlet 11–14 mm. diam. and 8 mm. thick, tomentose on its outer surface, with a persistent lateral style, sessile and attached by most of its lower surface to the receptacle and concealed in the accrescent calyx until its release.