description
Symphytum officinale is a perennial flowering plant of the family Boraginaceae.
The leafy stem, 2 to 3 feet high, is stout, angular and hollow, broadly winged
at the top and covered with bristly hairs.
The lower, radical leaves are very
large, up to 10 inches long, ovate in shape and covered with rough hairs which
promote itching when touched. The stem-leaves are decurrent, i.e. a portion of
them runs down the stem, the body of the leaf being continued beyond its base
and point of attachment with the stem. They decrease in size the higher they
grow up the stem, which is much branched above and terminated by one-sided
clusters of drooping flowers, either creamy yellow, or purple, growing on short
stalks.
These racemes of flowers are given off in pairs, and are what is known
as scorpoid in form, the curve they always assume suggesting, as the word
implies, the curve of a scorpion's tail, the flowers being all placed on one
side of the stem, gradually tapering from the fully-expanded blossom to the
final and almost imperceptible bud at the extremity of the curve, as in the
Forget-Me-Not.
The corollas are bell-shaped, the calyx deeply five-cleft, narrow
to lance-shaped, spreading, downier in the purple flowered type.
The fruit
consists of four shining nutlets, perforated at the base, and adhering to the
receptacle by their base. Comfrey is in bloom throughout the greater part of the
summer, the first flowers opening at the end of April or early May.
common names & nomenclature
The name comfrey is from Anglo-Norman French cumfirie, based on Latin
conferva, from confervere "heal", literally "boil together".
Also known as:
knitbone, knitback, slippery root, bruisewort, wallwort, boneset, common
comfrey, quaker comfrey, cultivated comfrey, consound, slippery root,
blackwort, yalluc, gum plant, consolida, ass ear
