![]() ![]() As usual, though, I confess to preferring the unadulterated version. So, another appropriate ‘weed’ for the festive season!Ĭreeping Comfrey is such a useful plant that it has spawned a number of ‘domesticated’ varieties, such as ‘Hidcote Blue’ and ‘Goldsmith’, pictured below. Like Common Comfrey, however, it can be used as a green manure, or rotted down as a liquid fertilizer, and there seems to be some agreement that the leaves can be used for external poultices for sprains and other injuries – after all, one vernacular name for the whole of the comfrey family is Knitbone, as the root was once grated and used as a kind of Plaster of Paris.Īnother name for Creeping Comfrey specifically is ‘Cherubim and Seraphim’, maybe because the fat pink buds look like cherubs, and the white flowers resemble the robes of angels. By 1898 it had ‘jumped the fence’ and was growing in the wild. Unlike Common Comfrey, this plant is originally from the Caucasus and was first grown in gardens in the late 19th Century. It is often seen in churchyards (as here) and in shady places, so maybe it would feel right at home. I wonder why, though, it was called ‘grandiflorum’? It is to my mind a most modest little plant, and one that I am tempted to try to grow under the trees in my north-facing garden where nothing much thrives. ![]() The buds are a pinky red colour, which soon turns to creamy-white bells. This little chap only grows to about 40 centimetres tall, and, as my Harrap’s Wild Flower guide states, ‘spreads aggressively via sprawling leafy runners that root at the nodes’. I have written previously about Common Comfrey which is a much taller, rangier plant. But not, apparently, all of it, because here it is again, flowering in December ( a whole three months early). Last time I looked, someone had dug it up. It is a glorious plant, but one that has something of a tendency to take over. A few years ago there was a whole bed of the plant, its red buds and cream flowers nodding under the assault of what seemed like a hundred bees. grandiflorum.Dear Readers, while I was passing All Saints’ Church on Durham Road in East Finchley today, I noticed that, despite everyone’s efforts, the Creeping Comfrey had crept back along the fence that edges the church garden. 'Hidcote Blue' is sometimes sold as a cultivar of S. ![]() 'Hidcote Blue’ is not grown for herbal reasons. Bell-shaped, bluebell-like, soft blue and white flowers appear in drooping clusters (scorpiod cymes) in mid-spring to early summer. It features light green crinkled leaves (to 4” long). ‘Hidcote Blue’ is a hybrid comfrey cultivar that typically grows in a low-spreading clump to 18” tall. Genus name comes from the Greek words symphyo meaning to grow together and phyton for plant as the plant was believed to help heal wounds. It should be noted, however, that the leaves are poisonous if ingested. officinale) have been grown in medicinal herb gardens for several centuries for the purported healing properties of the leaves and roots when applied as a poultice to inflamations and wounds. ![]() Comfrey is generally a coarse hairy rhizomatous perennial that is typically grown in borders or shade gardens for its attractive foliage and Virginia bluebell-like spring flowers. ![]()
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