Tag Archives: Boraginaceae

Phacelia amabilis Constances

Saline Valley Phacelia (Phacelia amabilis)

The Saline Valley Phacelia was discovered in 1942 in the Saline Valley in the Inyo County of California, USA and was never found again since, it is thus declared possibly extinct.

It may, however, just have been a color variant of another species, the Notch-leaved Phacelia (Phacelia crenulata Torr. ex S.Watson).

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Depiction from: ‘Le Roy Abrams: An illustrated flora of the Pacific States: Washington, Oregon, and California. Stanford University, Stanford University Press 1923-60’

(no known copyright restrictions)

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edited: 09.11.2021

Cryptantha hooveri I. M. Johnson

Hoover’s Cryptantha (Cryptantha hooveri)

Hoover’s Cryptantha was an annual, 5 to 20 cm tall plantlet with simple or branched stems and linear leaves that inhabited grassland communities on sandy soil.

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Hoover’s Cryptantha was last recorded in 1939 and may be extinct, however, the species is said to be hard to identify, so there’s some hope that it may still exist but may just have been overlooked so far.

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edited: 05.12.2018

Heliotropium pannifolium Burch. ex. Hemsl.

Saint Helena Heliotrope (Heliotropium pannifolium)

The Saint Helena Heliotrope is known only from the type specimen, that was collected by the British botanist William John Burchell in 1808 near Sandy Bay on the island of Saint Helena.

The species was a shrub growing up to 1 m height.

The type, now kept in the Kew Herbarium ijn Great Britain, bears badly signs of insect caused damage. 

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edited: 14.06.2020

Tournefortia obtusiflora Benth.

Blunt-leaved Tree Heliotrope (Tournefortia obtusiflora)  

This small treelet is known from a single collection from the first half of the 19th century.  

The Blunt-leaved Tree Heliotrope was probably restricted to dry coastal forest, most of which has been altered due to the expansion of Guayaquil, now the largest city in Ecuador.  

The species is most likely extinct.

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edited: 20.09.2020

Myosotis traversii var. cinerascens (Petrie) L. B. Moore

Greyish Forget-me-not (Myosotis traversii var. cinerascens)

The Greyish Forget-me-not, a subspecies of Traver’s Forget-me-not (Myosotis traversii Hook. f.), was restricted to exposed limestone cliff faces in the semi-alpine Castle Hill Basin in Canterbury, South Island, New Zealand.

The plant is known only from a handful of specimens collected in the 18th and 19th century, it was not found since and is thought to be possiblky extinct.

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edited: 04.09.2019

Cryptantha aperta (Eastw.) Payson

Grand Junction Cat’s-Eye (Cryptantha aperta)

The Grand Junction Cat’s-Eye was found only twice in 1892, both times somewhere around the city of Great Junction in Mesa County, Colorado, USA.

The original type locality is not really known, however, all presumed localities are more or less completely destroyed due to agricultural and urban development, the species was never found again and is considered most likely extinct.

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seeds

Depiction from: “Edwin Blake Payson: A monograph of the section Oreocarya of Cryptantha. Annals of the Missouri Botanical Garden 14(3): 211- 358. 1927”

(under creative commons license (3.0))
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0

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edited: 05.12.2018

Myosotis laingii Cheeseman

Waiautoa Forget-me-not (Myosotis laingii)

The Waiautoa Forget-me-not was apparently endemic to a very small area at terraces adjacent to the Clarence River near Lake Tennyson in southern Marlborough, South Island, New Zealand.

The species is known only from some few specimens that were collected between 1860 and 1912, it has never been recorded since and is thus believed to be extinct.

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edited: 18.04.2019