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Symphytum
Also called Comfreys, Indet. Comfrey, Comphreys
Symphytum is a genus of flowering plants in the borage family, Boraginaceae, known by the common name comfrey (pronounced , from the Latin confervere to 'heal' or literally to 'boil together', referring to uses in ancient traditional medicine).
Symphytum is native to northern temperate regions of Europe and Asia, with a wide introduced distribution on both continents as well as the Americas. There are 59 recognized species. More than 150 species have been cataloged by botanists. Some species and hybrids, particularly S. officinale, Symphytum grandiflorum, and S. × uplandicum, are used in gardening and herbal medicine. Species in the genus Symphytum are different from Andersonglossum virginianum, known as wild comfrey, which is another member of the borage family.
Comfrey is usually cultivated from rootstock. The Russian comfrey 'Bocking 4' and 'Bocking 14' cultivars were developed during the 1950s by Lawrence D. Hills, the founder of the Henry Doubleday Research Association (the organic gardening organization itself named after Henry Doubleday, who first introduced Russian comfrey into Britain in the nineteenth century) following trials at Bocking, Essex.
Folk medicine names for comfrey include knitbone, boneset, and the derivation of its Latin name Symphytum (from the Greek symphytis, meaning growing together of bones, and phyton, a plant), referring to its ancient uses. Similarly, the common French name is consoude, meaning to weld together. The tradition in different cultures and languages suggests a common belief in its usefulness for mending bones.
Comfrey contains mixed phytochemicals in varying amounts, including allantoin, mucilage, saponins, tannins, pyrrolizidine alkaloids, and inulin, among others. Pyrrolizidine alkaloids are responsible for comfrey's liver toxicity, which is associated with consuming this plant or its extracts. In modern herbalism, comfrey is most commonly used topically.
Prickly comfrey · Bulbous Comfrey · Caucasian Comfrey · Creeping comfrey · Common comfrey · White Comfrey · Tuberous comfrey
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Symphytum by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.
