Hormuzakia aggregata is a flowering annual plant in the borage family,[1] known by the common names massed alkanet, Arabic: لسان الثور, and Hebrew: לשון-שור מגובבת.

It grows in Mediterranean woodlands, shrublands, shrub-steppes and deserts of Sicily, North East Egypt and the Sinai Peninsula, Libya, Algeria, Turkey, Cyprus, Lebanon, Israel, Rhodes, Saudi Arabia and the East Aegean Islands.

[2][5] The roots of Hormuzakia aggregata contain anchusin or alkannin (alkanet red), a red-brown resinoid pigment.

[7] Alkannin is also found in the Chinese herbal medicine plant Lithospermum erythrorhizon, the red-root gromwell.

The dried root is a Chinese herbal medicine with various antiviral and biological activities, including inhibition of human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1).