Boraginaceae

Boraginaceae, the borage or forget-me-not family, has two significantly different circumscriptions as of December 2025. In the narrower circumscription, Boraginaceae sensu stricto is one of 11 families placed in the order Boraginales and includes about 90–120 genera. This approach was developed by the Boraginales Working Group. In the older, broader circumscription, Boraginaceae sensu lato is the only family in the order Boraginales, and includes about 155 genera.

Boraginaceae

Philmarin · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Also called
boragePBDB
Sits inside
BoraginalesPBDB
Diet
"photoautotroph"PBDB, for Angiospermae

Time the record covers

At least 65 million years on record.

The record covers at least 66 Mya to 11.7 ka. No occurrence read is dated outside 100.5 Mya to 0 Mya.

Early Cretaceous — about 0 of 48 occurrencesLate Cretaceous — about 3 of 48 occurrencesLate CretaceousPaleocene — about 1 of 48 occurrencesPaleoceneEocene — about 12 of 48 occurrencesEoceneOligocene — about 2 of 48 occurrencesOligoceneMiocene — about 8 of 48 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 1 of 48 occurrencesPleistocene — about 19 of 48 occurrences103–99 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences99–96 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences96–92 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences92–89 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences89–85 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences85–82 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences82–79 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences79–75 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences75–72 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences72–68 Mya — about 0.3 occurrences68–65 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences65–62 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences62–58 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences58–55 Mya — about 1 occurrence55–51 Mya — about 3 occurrences51–48 Mya — about 2 occurrences48–44 Mya — about 1 occurrence44–41 Mya — about 1 occurrence41–38 Mya — about 2 occurrences38–34 Mya — about 1 occurrence34–31 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences31–27 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences27–24 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences24–21 Mya — about 0.4 occurrences21–17 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences17–14 Mya — about 0.9 occurrences14–10 Mya — about 1 occurrence10–6.8 Mya — about 3 occurrences6.8–3.4 Mya — about 2 occurrences3.4–0 Mya — about 21 occurrences66 Mya11.7 ka103 Mya0 Mya

48 occurrences of Boraginaceae on record, most of them in the Pleistocene. The Paleobiology Database records this as a living group. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

48 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

15 formations

Okinoyama — 34.00°N, 131.00°ETuscaloosa — 33.92°N, 87.74°WTuscaloosa — 33.61°N, 87.74°WTuscaloosa — 33.17°N, 87.43°WLondon Clay — 51.78°N, 2.27°WLondon Clay — 50.93°N, 1.48°WOgallala — 39.02°N, 99.52°WMotojuku — 36.25°N, 138.75°EOgawa — 36.42°N, 138.08°EOhoka — 36.42°N, 138.00°EOlduvai — 2.99°S, 35.33°EValentine — 42.00°N, 100.43°WBagshot — 50.72°N, 2.00°WMancora — 5.03°S, 80.16°WPeñas Coloradas — 45.43°S, 67.14°WUpper — 30.75°N, 76.85°ENeyveli — 11.54°N, 79.48°EAckerman — 34.66°N, 89.10°W

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The named rock units Boraginaceae has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 23 occurrences have no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Boraginaceae and its relatives

Pleistocene

Where Boraginaceae and its relatives were recorded in the Pleistocene.

Found in the same rock

907 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 38 sites for Boraginaceae, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

19 references

Each of the 48 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. 7 further references are not listed. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content1

Picture of Boraginaceae

Credit
Philmarin
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

No 3D scan of Boraginaceae was found in MorphoSource and Sketchfab.

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itBoraginales through timeFormations of the PleistoceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. de Jussieu 1789