Photos: Co. Kildare. © Naomi Brennan

Creeping Comfrey Symphytum grandiflorum Family: Boraginaceae Flowering March-May. Perennial. Introduced. Garden escape. Erect flower stems with yellowish-cream flowers that have red buds and blunt calyx-lobes and are followed by seeds like dark-brown nutlets. Evergreen leaves with cordate leaf-bases on long, winged decumbent stems. Vigorous, spreading growth with creeping rhizomes, It is the earliest Comfrey to flower. Grown as ground cover in gardens but only infrequently recorded in Ireland as a garden escape or discard.

Creeping Comfrey, Symphytum grandiflorum