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Common Comfrey

Common Comfrey

Symphytum officinale

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How common: Common

Alien species

Common Comfrey is a robust, hairy perennial with drooping, bell‑shaped blue to blue‑purple flowers. It is often seen on damp ground by ditches, streams and field edges, and it can spread from gardens to rough ground.

Did you know?

  • The flower cluster starts tightly coiled like a spring and slowly unrolls as the flowers open.
  • Bumblebees are frequent visitors to the deep, bell‑shaped flowers.

About the species

Identification

A tall, rough plant (30–120 cm). The sturdy green stem is usually unbranched and softly bristly. Leaves are large, rough and narrow to oval with smooth edges; their bases run down the stem, forming narrow wings. Flower clusters are curved, one‑sided coils that unroll as they bloom. Flowers are drooping bells to short funnels, usually blue to blue‑purple. Later each flower forms four small, shiny, hard seeds. Similar garden comfreys and hybrids are often taller, more branched and with broader leaves. Flowers in Finland from June to September.

Plant group

Herbaceous plants

Habitat

meadow, yards and roadsides

Flowering

Jun–Sep

About the habitat

Grows in damp, nutrient‑rich places such as meadows, field edges and roadsides, ditch and river banks, and waste ground. Locally common in southern Finland, more scattered further north; largely absent from Lapland except its southern fringe.

Sources

Photo: Robert Flogaus-Faust, CC BY 4.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Symphytum officinale 2 RF.jpg

Text: Pinkka: BIO-103 Eliöiden monimuotoisuus - Siemenkasvit: Silene-Viscaria, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.39408

Text: Wikipedia (Finnish), CC BY-SA 4.0 https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohtoraunioyrtti

See also