110 FAMILIAR WILD FLOWERS. 



is indigenous in the British Isles is the tuberous comfrey, 

 or 8. tulerosum. This latter plant, though to some extent 

 resembling the common comfrey, is, in several respects, 

 very distinct; it is seldom more than a foot high, 

 not branching out, and the flowers, though about the 

 same size individually as those of the S. officinale, are 

 in much smaller masses. The common comfrey attains 

 to a height of three feet or even more, and branches 

 very freely. Its leaves are broadly lanceolate in form; 

 the lower ones, which are somewhat like the tobacco 

 plant in shape, are on long stalks, while the upper 

 and more visible and conspicuous are stalkless, and are 

 what is botanically termed 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. This very conspicuous feature is one not 

 often met with in plants, and will greatly tend to aid its 

 identification with those unacquainted with it. It may 

 be very well seen in the various species of thistles, but 

 the spiny nature of these is sufficiently decidedly marked 

 to render any hesitation between them and the present 

 plant impossible in any attempt at identification of the 

 comfrey, by means of this feature of its growth. The 

 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 the tail of 

 the scorpion. The flowers are all placed on one side of the 

 stem, and the gradual tapering from the fully expanded 

 blossom to the final and almost imperceptible bud at the 

 extremity of the curve is a very curious and beautiful point 

 to be noted. This scorpoid form may be very well seen 

 again in the forget-me-not, the subject of another of our 



