Echium vulgare Linnaeus
viper’s-bugloss
Europe, Asia Minor; introduced into North America, Australasia
An infusion of the leaves ofEchium vulgare has been drunk in Somerset as a
cure for a headache.^4
Pulmonaria officinalis Linnaeus
lungwort
northern and central Europe, Caucasus; introduced into western
Europe, North America
(Folk credentials questionable) Two members of the genus Pulmonaria are
accepted as native in England, but both are too limited in their range to have
been likely candidates for herbal use. That function has been served by the
introduced P.o fficinalis,which is very widely grown in gardens and often
naturalised on banks and in woods. Commonly dismissed as merely another
of the plants supposed to reveal their utility through their form (the Doctrine
of Signatures), the spots on its leaves supposedly having prompted its appli-
cation to spots on the lungs, the plant does in fact contain active principles
which are claimed in alternative medicine circles to be genuinely beneficial
for respiratory complaints. Folk records of its use for pulmonary tuberculo-
sis in Hampshire^5 and Norfolk^6 may thus not be the products of credulity, as
usually imagined—though the sources in these cases were more probably
cottage gardens than colonies of the plant growing wild. Alternatively, the
records may refer to the lichen Lobaria pulmonaria,which is sometimes called
‘lungwort’, too.
In Ireland, ‘lungwort’ was one of the names borne by mullein (Ve r b a s -
cum thapsus), to which Irish records can safely be referred.
Symphytum officinale Linnaeus
common comfrey
Europe, western Asia; introduced into North America, Australasia
Another of the chief stand-bys in the folk repertory, very widely known about
and still frequently used,Symphytum officinale is nevertheless a rarity, and
almost certainly not native, over most of the north and west of the British
Isles as well as in East Anglia. Two colour forms occur, one reddish, the other
white-flowered, each on the whole with different distributions. Populations
containing both are almost confined to the Thames Valley and to five of the
southernmost counties of England from Sussex to Devon.^7 Two of these, Sus-
sex^8 and Dorset,^9 are also among the three counties (the third is Shropshire^10 )
Comfrey, Vervain and Mints 207