Euploca is an almost cosmopolitan genus of plants with 168 species.
While many species use the photosynthetic pathway, there are also â intermediate species. Some species have leaves with a -typical Kranz anatomy.
The genus was first described by Thomas Nuttall in 1837. While part of the broadly defined Boraginaceae in the APG IV system from 2016, a revision of the order Boraginales from the same year includes Euploca in the separate family Heliotropiaceae.
Its species used to be classified in the genera Hilgeria and Schleidenia and in Heliotropium sect. Orthostachys, but were found to form an independent lineage in a molecular phylogenetic analysis, more closely related to Myriopus than to Heliotropium.
168 species are accepted.
The genus has an almost cosmopolitan distribution.