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CHAPTER 12 Comfrey, Vervain and Mints

Dicotyledonous flowering plants in the order Lamiales and families Boragi-
naceae (borages), Verbenaceae (vervains) and Lamiaceae (mints) are included
in this chapter.

Boraginaceae

Lithospermum officinale Linnaeus
common gromwell
Europe, western Asia; introduced into North America
Identified with a herb recommended by Dioscorides as a cure for the stone,
the hard-coated seeds ofLithospermum officinale became popular in that
connection when plants supposed to reveal their utility through their form
(the Doctrine of Signatures) were boosted in the herbals. There is a record of
this use from the eastern Yorkshire moors dating from as late as 1897.^1
In Ireland the plant was one of four herbs credited with that same virtue
which went into a decoction drunk for gravel in several parts of the country
half a century earlier.^2 While that, too, sounds like a legacy from written med-
icine, a record from Meath^3 —a region in which Lithospermum officinale was
at one time locally abundant—of ‘grumble seed’, ‘which grows along the
Boyne River’, being collected and boiled for kidney trouble may have more
merit as a relic of the folk tradition.
A probable misidentification of this species as ‘eyeseed’ in Essex is dis-
cussed under wild clary (Salvia verbenaca).