Trichodesma africanum  

Trichodesma africanum (L.) R.Br., Prodr. Fl. Nov. Holl.:496 (1810). Plate Borag. 17, d.
=
Borago africana L. (1753); Borago verrucosa Forssk. (1775); Pollichia africana Medicus (1783);
Boraginoides aculeata Moench (1794); Boraginella africana O. Kuntze (1891); Boraginoides africana
.Hiern (1898)

Arabic Names: Hamham; Harraqalpa
Annual or perennating prickly herb, up to c. 75 (-80) cm tall, mostly branching from base. Stems and
leaves prickly because of tubercle-based prickles accompanied by or without dense, smaller fine bristles.
Leaves opposite and sometimes alternate in parts, elliptical, narrowed at both ends, up to 5.5 (-6.5) x 2.5
cm, usually smaller. Flowers bluish with yellow center, up to 6-12 mm across, arranged in terminal and
axillary panicles, on pedicels elongating and nodding in fruit. Calyx c. 6 mm long, densely white-hairy,
enlarging in fruit to c. 10 mm or a little more long. Corolla lobes ovate, long-acuminate. Anthers densely
white-hairy with naked appendage-tips. Nutlets ovoid, brown, up to c. 6 mm long, densely tuberculate in
the median part, and dentate-prickly margin.
This species is represented by 2 varieties in Saudi Arabia. Var. africanum (=var. homotrichum Bornm. &
Kneuck., 1916) has only one kind of the rigid tubercule-based bristles on otherwise glabrous background.
Var. heterotrichum Bornm. & Kneuck., Allgem. Bot. Zeitschr. 22: 3 (1916) has the prickly bristles upon
greyish-white dense pubescence.
Saudi Arabia: Widespread
Distribution: Africa, Middle East, Pakistan, India.

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