Russian Comfrey agg. - Symphytum officinale x asperum = S. x uplandicum
Tall plant to 2 metres, the stems narrowly winged below the leaves. Flowers starting off pink but soon becoming blue or violet.
Many other species, hybrids and varieties of comfrey with blue, pink or pale flowers
Almost always with blue, violet or purplish flowers; yellow flowers are rare. Leaves not strongly decurrent (i.e. wings extend a short way down stem below each leaf), unlike S officinale. Nutlets dull and minutely tuberculate. Not stoloniferous, unlike S x hidcotense, which also has blue flowers, often flushed pink or red.
This can't be verified from the flowers alone; a photograph of the whole plant, including leaves and stems.
Roadside verges, banks, woodland and waste places.
June to August.
Perennial.
Quite common throughout much of Britain.
Fairly frequent in Leicestershire and Rutland. In the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire it was found in 137 of the 617 tetrads.
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Species profile
- Common names
- Russian Comfrey
- Species group:
- flowering plant
- Kingdom:
- Plantae
- Order:
- Family:
- Boraginaceae
- Records on NatureSpot:
- 73
- First record:
- 21/05/2008 (Calow, Graham)
- Last record:
- 16/05/2025 (Andrews, Mark)
Total records by month
% of records within its species group
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Agromyza abiens/myosotidis/lithospermi agg.
The larvae of the Agromyzid flies Agromyza abiens, Agromyza myosotidis and Agromyza lithospermi produce identical mines on the leaves of several food plants in the Boraginaeceae family, such as Borage, Comfrey and Green Alkanet plus a number of other host plants. The initial narrow gallery contains frass in a double line, which it then expands to form a blotch mine. Several larvae may occupy a leaf to form a large blotch. Because the mines on these plants cannot be reliably separated to species level we treat them as an aggregate.









