White comfrey, or pulmonaria?

[veggiechicken]

Just had a look at mine! The leaves have a rough feel, softer on top, with prominet veins on the underside. When you run the leaf through your fingers its noisy! Not squeaky as a smooth leaf would be.
It does smell slightly cucumbery and doesn't really taste of anything except green.
One of the clumps, in amongst the fruit bushes, is a lot shorter than the one in my photo - that one is in the open although would have very little direct sunlight.
Where the flowers have fallen off, it leaves behind a long white ?stamen. You can see some in the bottom left of my photo.
I thought Pulmonaria had spotted leaves?

[mothhawk]

I wasn't sure if all pulmonarias had spotted leaves or not. But the leaves do have distinct veins, and the flowers leave long white stamens when they drop off, just like in your photo VC, so comfrey it is!

I had a scrabble around under the hedge to dig some up, and found it was spreading by dibbing in roots where it touched the ground, so got a piece up easily as it hadn't rooted deeply yet.

Thanks all!

[VirginVegGrower]

Here's the white comfrey in my garden:
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Is this the plant you've seen in the wild, mothhawk?

That's beautiful VC.

[zazen999]

That's beautiful VC.

I meant to text you yesterday - isn't this what we found in the woods that we thought was comfreyish?

[Not VC - pulmonaria]

[veggiechicken]

I'm starting to worry. What if the plant I have is not White comfrey? I don't remember how it came here - certainly didn't plant it. I've just always called it White comfrey

[mothhawk]

This is the first time I've ever been unsure about a plant - it's usually easy to identify the species if not the variant. But I am sure now that this is comfrey. I've compared with the pulmonaria in the garden, and studied botanical illustrations on the web, I've sniffed and touched and tasted. It's comfrey, folks!

[shushkin!]

Comfrey

Well, I've taken a couple of photos, and now I'm not sure again. The flower stems have grown taller since I last looked at it. It smells a bit cucumbery when you bruise a leaf. I'm thinking maybe it is comfrey?

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[ATTACH=CONFIG]28584[/ATTACH]

Yep, definitely symphytum or "comfrey"

[Dorothy rouse]

Pulmonaria, sounds like an illness

[WendyC]

Pulmonaria, sounds like an illness

It was thought to cure lung diseases so you're not far off.

[veggiechicken]

The spots on the leaves of pulmonaria were supposed to be similar to diseased lungs.

[Dorothy rouse]

Nice one.

Better get some growing I reckon. It seems that comfrey comes in lots of different colours.

Gosh you do learn a lot on here, don't you.

[iGrow]

Try and get Bocking 14 which is a sterile variety otherwise you will find you will have more than you bargained for...

[mothhawk]

Try and get Bocking 14 which is a sterile variety otherwise you will find you will have more than you bargained for...

Comfrey only spreads if it is ALLOWED to seed, and I am perfectly capable of dead-heading my comfrey (comfrey symphytum grandiflorum).

It has much more going for it than B14.
- it's in flower now, and the early bumbles love it
- it is shallow rooted so easy to pull out
- it grows happily in damp shade which never gets the sun, so perfect in my north facing garden
- it stays green all year, so the soil is never bare
- it's low growing, so my hardy fuchsias can arch over it in the summer months when it's not doing much
- and the leaves are good added to the compost heap.

What more could you want?