Anchusa officinalis

Range and habitat

The native range of the species is in Europe from France into Russia west of the Ural Mountains and then south in to Kazakhstan. It has been introduced to additional places in Europe such as the United Kingdom, Ireland, Belgium, and Finland. It has also been introduced to North America and is found on the Pacific coast from British Columbia to California and in many of the Rocky Mountain states including Idaho, Montana, Utah, and Colorado. In the eastern US, it is found in Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Ontario, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin. Elsewhere, it also grows in northeastern Argentina.

Common alkanet grows in varied environments such as sandy grasslands in coastal dunes, wastelands that were formerly developed or farmed areas, in shrub communities, the slopes of former quarry sites, and along roadsides.

Taxonomy

As with many plants and other species, the first scientific name was given to Anchusa officinalis by Carl Linnaeus in 1753. At the same time he misidentified some specimens as a separate species, Anchusa angustifolia which is now regarded as a synonym of Anchusa officinalis subsp. officinalis. Since that time, 39 more species and subspecies that are now regarded as synonyms have been published.

As of 2024, Anchusa officinalis L. is listed by Plants of the World Online (POWO) and World Flora Online (WFO) as the accepted name for this species.

Subspecies

As of 2024, two subspecies are recognized. The autonym Anchusa officinalis subsp. officinalis and Anchusa officinalis subsp. intacta. The subspecies intacta was first described and named by August Grisebach in 1844. In 2003 the botanists Federico Selvi and Massimo Bigazzi (1953–2006) published a paper where they better defined the relationship of ssp. intacta with the rest of the species and found evidence that it originated from a hybridization event with the Anatolian relative Anchusa leptophylla.

Names

The name for the genus Anchusa is botanical Latin derived from the Greek "agchousa" ["angchousa"] or "egchousa", the name for plants from which rouge were made. From the Greek word "egchousizein", to put on rouge. The species name, or specific epithet, officinalis is an adjective used in medieval Latin meaning of a workshop. This name has been applied to many plants that have or had a common use.

This plant is frequently called "common bugloss" in the United States, distinguishing it from Anchusa arvensis which is frequently called simply "bugloss". It is also sometimes called "small garden buglosse". This name is a reference to the blue flowers suggesting the blueish tongue of a cow, from medieval Latin "buglossus", ox-toungued.

The names "common alkanet" or simply "alkanet" are frequently used for this species, but alkanet alone is occasionally used for other species such as Alkanna tinctoria, Pentaglottis sempervirens, Brunnera macrophylla, or to the genus Anchusa as a whole. This name comes to English by way of Spanish from the Moorish Arabic "al-hannat", henna, though the plants have nothing to do with each other.

Ecology

The plant provides a great deal of nectar for pollinators. It was rated ninth in nectar production (nectar per unit cover per year) in a UK plants survey conducted by the Agriland project. Bumblebees and cuckoo bumblebees visit the flowers of common bugloss significantly more frequently than other bees, often representing over 90% of the visitors to flowers. The common European species, Bombus subterraneus, is one that is specifically identified as a pollinator. Females of the specialist bee species Hoplitis adunca only visit flowers of genus Echium to collect pollen, but they frequently visit other blue flowers like Anchusa officinalis to collect nectar.

Weed status

Common bugloss has been considered a noxious weed in Washington State since 1988 with prohibitions on transporting or selling plants in the state. It is similarly listed as a noxious weed in Oregon on their "B List" and "T List", as a regionally common weed that is a focus of preventive control. In British Columbia it is listed as an invasive plant and a "regional noxious weed" in the Regional District of Kootenay Boundary. It is of concern in agriculture both for competing with more desirable forage species in fields and for causing baled hay to rot due to the high moisture content of its leaves.

Uses

Ornamental

Common bugloss is sometimes planted in kitchen, herb, or wildflower gardens. It is cold tolerant, able to endure winter temperatures at least as low as −20 °C (−4 °F). In a garden setting it requires good drainage, particularly in wet climates. Though in dry climates with typically freely draining soils, like Colorado, it known from relatively moist areas. In gardens seeds are planted as soon as the soil can be worked. Taller plants are staked to prevent them from falling over. They are winter hardy in USDA zones 3–10.

Culinary

The young leaves and young shoots of bugloss, when the hairs are still soft, are eaten in southern France and parts of Germany. Like the leaves of spinach they are steamed or boiled before consumption. Young leaves are also sometimes used in salads. However, the pyrrolizidine alkaloid lycopsamine has been found in the seeds and the upper parts of the plant. While there are no records of toxic effects in humans or animals similar unsaturated pyrrolizidine alkaloids have caused toxic effects and further studies have been urged as the plant flowers are occasionally sold as a food ingredient.

Traditional uses

Though physicians in his time regarded Nicholas Culpeper as "something of a fraud", his book The English Physician Enlarged was also very popular, five editions of it being printed before 1698. Culpeper wrote of Anchusa officinalis under the names "alkanet", "orchanet", "Spanish bugloss", and "enchusa". He claimed many virtues for the plant, including that it would cure snake bites and the extraordinary claim that, "if any one that hath newly eaten it, do but spit into the mouth of a serpent, the serpent instantly dies."

In European medical herbalism it was used prior to about 1810 for having "aperient and refrigerant" virtues (laxative and fever lowering). However, the physician and botanist William Woodville wrote, "as all the common oloraceous plants are cooling and laxative, these properties are no peculiar recommendation of Bugloss." The Greek physician in the 1st century Pedanius Dioscorides wrote of the astringent effect of the root of common bugloss. He also said that it was effective for the healing of burns and old ulcers when the root was boiled in oil. Preparations of the root were also used externally to treat pain and soothe the skin as well as promoting wound healing. The late medieval botanist Hieronymus Bock recommended it to treat depression and strengthen the heart. Though both Leonhart Fuchs and Bock wrote that it could be used to treat depression, Woodville attributed all its supposed effectiveness to the fact that it was administered in wine. It is generally regarded as obsolete as a remedy due to the levels of pyrrolizidine alkaloids in the plant.