Echium vulgare var album = Echium italicum?

[PaulM]

I received seeds of a white form of viper's bugloss from the German plant society GdSF in 2006, and it is flowering now in 2007. I think it looks very much like Echium italicum, and is there in fact a white form of viper's bugloss? 

[Heather Smith]

Yes there is a white form - I have seen it in the wild in the Pyrenees. Many wildflowers have a white form (Gentianas, Phyteumas, Eritrichiums etc even Rhododendron ferrugineum, usually pink but 3 bushes of the purest white I saw in Nuria in the Spanish Eastern Pyrenees). It is just a lack of the usual colour pigment; a genetic 'problem' I guess.