Comfrey

Comfrey, Symhytum officinale, is a large rooted perennial with large rough hairy leaves. As you can see from the pic it has purple-blue bell like flowers in clusters. It can have pink or white flowers depending on the variety. Comfrey is a widely used medicinal plant but one with a bad reputation. All though comfrey contains allantoin, which is known to promote healing, it also contains compounds that may be carcinogenic. In it's defense, a cup of comfrey leaf tea contains less carcinogens than a beer. A real danger with fatal consequences is mistaking the first year rossete leaves of Foxglove (Digitalis) for comfrey. The plants in the pic are decedents of plants my grandfather put in for grazing his sheep. It persist despite my uncle's continued efforts to eradicate it. I dug up a few of the offending plants several years ago and now have several patches of this versatile healer established. As with any plant you may decide to use for medicinal purposes, study the plant, respect it, research it, and don't get the foolish notion that natural necessarily means safe.