Paracaryum
(from para, beside, and karyon, a nut; in reference to the position of the nutlets). SYN. Omphalodes (in part). ORD. Boragineae. A genus comprising about ten species of mostly hardy, biennial or perennial, cano-pubescent, hirsute, or rarely setose-hispid herbs, natives of South Europe and Central Asia. Flowers violet or blue, rather small, pedicellate or sub-sessile; calyx five-parted or deeply five-cut; corolla funnel-shaped, with a short or rather long tube, and five imbricated, obtuse, short, erect or spreading lobes; racemes elongated, ebracteate, or few-bracted at base, sometimes loose and broadly paniculate. Nutlets four, depressed at back. Leaves alternate. The species best known in gardens are those described below, for culture of which see Cynoglossum.
P. anchusoides (Anchusa-like). fl., corolla tube purplish, cylindrical, the limb blue, sub-patent; pedicels extra-axillary, shorter than the calyx; panicles loosely branched, elongated, naked at apex. May. l., radical ones lanceolate, long-stalked; cauline ones linear-lanceolate, sessile. h. 2ft. Cashmere, 1840. (B. R. 1842, 14, under name of Cynoglossum anchusoides.) P. caelestinum (celestial-blue). fl., corolla blue, margined with white; fructiferous pedicels reflexed, shorter than the calyx; racemes ebracteate, often twice bifid. August. l., radical ones petiolate, cordate-ovate, sub-acute; cauline ones ovate, acute, cuneate at base. h. 1ft. to 2ft. North India, 1837. (B. R. 1839, 36, under name of Cynoglossum caelestinum.) P. myosotoides (Myosotis-like). fl. loosely racemose; corolla blue, small, funnel-shaped, scarcely longer than the calyx. September. l., radical ones spathulate-lanceolate; cauline ones sessile, linear-lanceolate, strigose, rough. h. 1 1/2ft. Orient, 1838. Half-hardy.