40O FLOWERS OF GARDEN AND GREENHOUSE 



COMFREYS 



Natural Order Boragine^. Genus Symphytum 



Symphytum (the classical Greek name, said to be derived from symphuo, 

 to cause to grow together, in allusion to its reputation as a woundwort). 

 A genus of sixteen or seventeen coai-se, bristly perennials, with white, 

 blue, purple, or yellow tubular flowers in drooping terminal cymes. 

 Natives of Europe, North Africa, and Western Asia. Two species are 

 British. 



History. Comfrey has long held a place in old-fashioned 



gardens, though a trifle too coarse and robust to be very 

 popular in those of a more modern type. In old days it shared with 

 Borage the reputation of being a valuable ingredient in the concoction 

 of "cool tankards," and was greatly esteemed as a blood cooler, a healer 

 of all wounds, and a stayer of all fluxes. But though its medicinal 

 character has been lost it still stays on in our gardens ; or in places where 

 it has been turned out to make room for more compact and brilliant 

 subjects, you will find it clinging to the spot and growing in profusion 

 on the boundary wastes. The native species are Symphytum officinale 

 and aS. tuberosum. Several foreign species have been introduced at 

 various times, among them the Prickly Comfrey, S asperrimum, from 

 the Caucasus in 1799, and S. peregrinum, from Iberia (1816), which is 

 frequently grown as a fodder-plant under the name of S. asperrimum. 

 Ihe plant mtroduced from Bohemia in 1810 under the name of S. 

 I now ranks as S. officinale var. hohemicum. The blue-flowered 

 as introduced from the Caucasus in 1820. 

 Symphytum caucasicum (Caucasian). Stem 3 feet 

 nigh. Leaves oval-lance-shaped, hairy; upper ones con- 

 tinued down sides of stem ; lower ones long-stalked. Flowers blue, 

 tubular, the mouth bell-shaped ; May to July. 



S. OFFICINALE (of the shops). Common Comfrey. Bristly and 

 hairy. Eootstock branched; stems 1 to 3 feet high, stout, branched 

 angular, and broadly winged. Leaves oval-lance-shaped; lower with 

 long winged stalks ; upper with short stalks. Flowers yellow, red, or 

 purple in scorpioid cymes ; May to August. There are several varieties 

 including var. luteo-marginatum, with yellow-edged leaves. 



S. TUBEROSUM (tuberous). Hairy, not bristly. Rootstock short, 

 horizontal. Stem rather slender, scarcely winged. Leaves similar to 

 those of S. officinale, but the radical ones with longer stalks, and the 



