Heliotropium amplexicaule flowers

The blue or mauve, sessile flowers of Heliotropium amplexicaule grow in terminal inflorescences that fork into up to four, unilateral, but two-rowed cymes that may coil.

The green calyx of the flower is very hairy. The small flowers face up, their five-lobed corollas rounded, shorter than the corolla tubes. Flower colour is blue or mauve, the throat, the inside of the tube, yellow. The included stamens arise on the corolla tube, their filaments short. Flowering times may vary geographically, in some places from spring to summer, in others summer to autumn.

The generic name Heliotropium is derived from a (discarded) belief that the flowers turn to follow the sun (Pooley, 1998; Van Wyk and Malan, 1997).