Elusive white borage

Back in 2016 or 2017 I got some borage (Borago officinalis) seeds and grew out some borage plants.  I allowed my plants to self seed and it popped up in a lot of places around the garden.  I like the blue flowers, so never thought to get a white flowered variety.

Borage is an annual or biennial herb that has a lot of used in the permaculture garden.  It it is a  medicinal plant with edible leaves and edible flowers.  Borage is adored by honey bees and other pollinator insects, and its leaves are great in the compost.  Borage leaves smell and taste a little like cucumber, which is fun.  Poultry and livestock gladly eat borage leaves.

Each year my borage flowers profusely with lovely blue flowers.  As the flowers age they sometimes turn pink, this is an environmental thing.  After flowering they self seed, and when the time is ready it grows wherever the seeds happened to land.  I don't water it or weed it, sometimes I mow it if it is in the wrong place.  Other than that borage just does its thing with no work from me.  My honeybees like the flowers, and my chickens like to eat the leaves.  Borage is meant to be good at smothering weeds, and it is excellent in the compost.

I was selecting for larger plants, but gave up on that after a while because it isn't needed.  Some borage plants grow massive, others remain tiny.  With my narrow gene pool, growing conditions and environment appear to play a larger role in determining the size of the plants than genetics.

This year one of the self seeded plants has white flowers! 

White Flowered Borage

I've never grown white borage before

I have never seen a white flowered borage in this population before.  One of three things has happened here:

1. Perhaps this has arisen from a mutation that occurred spontaneously in my population.  
2. Maybe blue is dominant, and my population has always had hidden recessive genes for white that have never been displayed before this.  This seems unlikely (but not impossible) given the number of generations this population has grown here with no whites.
3. Maybe someone nearby has white borage and insects brought the pollen in last season (or a few seasons ago).  

I will never know for sure, but like to think that this may be a spontaneous mutation.  It isn't uncommon for one gene to get broken and produce something novel like this.

I have never grown white borage before, and have not been able to find out if blue or white is dominant.  I hope to save some seed from my open pollinated white borage and see what its progeny do.  Update: it appears that blue borage flowers is dominant and white is recessive.

Regardless of the outcome, I think having one white flowered plant appear like this is kind of fun.

Regular blue borage flowers taste like cucumber

Blue borage flowers fade to pink

Even on cold days there are often bees on borage flowers

Bees and other pollinators love borage

Blue borage growing among the lawn weeds

I hope to be able to save some seed of the white borage to see what colour flowers their progeny has.  I dare say it will drop some seed as well as me collecting some seed, and this will become part of the borage gene bank in my yard.