Annual or perennial herbs or more rarely trees or shrubs, usually rough with coarse hairs. Leaves alternate, seldom opposite, simple, entire or toothed; stipules wanting. Flowers regular, hermaphrodite, usually arranged in one-sided simple or forked gyrate spikes or racemes (in reality scorpioid cymes), rarely solitary. Calyx inferior, 5-lobed or -partite, persistent. Corolla gamo-petalous, hypogynous; throat often closed with hairs or scales; lobes usually 5, seldom 4, imbricate. Stamens the same number as the lobes of the corolla and alternate with them, inserted on the tube or throat of the corolla; anthers 2-celled, opening lengthwise. Ovary superior, deeply 4-lobed and 4-celled in the majority of the species and in all those found in New Zealand, sometimes entire or 2-lobed; style from between the ovary-lobes or terminal; stigma capitate or 2-lobed; ovules solitary in each cell, ascending. Fruit usually composed of 4 indehiscent nutlets or pyrenes, rarely drupaceous. Seed erect or oblique, testa membranous; albumen copious or scanty or wanting; embryo straight or curved, radicle superior.

A large and widely distributed order, found in all parts of the world, the herbaceous genera most abundant in the Northern Hemisphere, especially in south Europe and the Levant; the shrubby and arborescent ones mainly tropical. Genera about 70; species estimated at 1200. The properties of the order are unimportant. Some of the species are mucilaginous and emollient, and have been used in medicine. The roots of others, such as Anchusa (alkanet), yield a red dye. The heliotrope, forget-me-not, and many others are cultivated for ornament. Of the three indigenous genera, Myosotis has a wide range in temperate climates; the remaining two are endemic.

* Calyx and corolla 5-lobed.