Borago officinalis, borage, as I mentioned last October, blooms almost exclusively with blue flowers. At the time though, a few maturing seedlings were blooming with a few pink flowers that eventually were replaced with blue flowers. Now that more are blooming, a few are doing so like this, with white flowers. Also last October, I mentioned that, although white is my favorite color, I expect borage to bloom blue. Not only does blue seem like a more natural color for it, but is also prettier. White borage seems rather mundane. Fortunately, most bloom blue, with enough that bloom white for my own garden, where I am less concerned with how pretty they are. I now wonder if they will be true to type. In other words, I wonder if those that bloom white will produce seed for more that bloom white, or if they will revert to bloom mostly blue. I will take what I get, I suppose. I have not yet found one that I do not like. I would be impressed, or perhaps concerned, by orange bloom, but I seriously doubt that will happen. I should be more concerned with what to do with all these borage seedlings than with their bloom color. I will plant only a few at work, which leaves more than a few for my home garden. Although supposedly not invasive, they are also supposedly proficient with self seeding. Once they get established within my garden, they will likely always be there. I suppose that I should learn to exploit their culinary applications, particularly for those that bloom blue where I do not want them, but perhaps less so for those that bloom white where I do want them. Now I am getting ahead of the situation. After all, they are still just seedlings.
Tony Tomeo 
Borage reseeds reliably here and the white ones I sowed a few years ago always appear – well, at least one plant does. The blue are definitely more prolific in my garden. And I like blue best, as the white ones just don’t look like borage should. The flowers are pretty as a plate decoration, even if you don’t eat them. People call it cucumber weed here, as it tastes a little like cucumber and I assume was formerly used in cucumber salad, although I haven’t tried that.
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That is the impression that I get; that the white flowers just do not look like borage should. I will put them in my own garden where I want exclusively white flowers, but not in the landscapes at work.
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This is really interesting. I didn’t realize that borage will “do this” too. One year I found several white bluebonnets, and learned the white flowers result from a mutation in one of the genes responsible for producing bluebonnets’ usual color — but the breeding isn’t true. In a field filled with blue flowers, white flowers usually are pollinated from the blue, masking the mutation in the next generation and producing more colored flowers.
Some white ones surface occasionally since blue flowers can carry the mutant gene that causes them. But to produce white flowers, flowers with the white mutant gene must be fertilized by pollen which also has the mutant gene. That’s apparently why white flowers sometimes will form small colonies; as their numbers increase, the white parent flowers have a better chance of being fertilized by pollen that carries the mutation.
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This random variation seems to be more common among specifically blue flowers, such as Lupinus, Agapanthus, Jacaranda, Ceanothus and so on. Flowers of any other color, even purplish blue, are more genetically stable.
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But lookie at my last weekend’s discovery: red Indian paintbrush gone yellow! and increasing in numbers since last year.
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That is more of a ‘normal’ genetic variant, though. They are blooming with a color that is within their natural range. White variants of some blue flowers are more like mutants that lack foliar color. Although it is also natural, it may not be the result of breeding.
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Cool! So much to learn…
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