Common Name: BORAGE FAMILY
Habit: Annual, perennial herb, or shrub, often bristly or sharp-hairy. Stem: prostrate-decumbent to erect. Leaf: basal and/or cauline, simple, generally alternate, sometimes opposite, especially at base. Inflorescence: cymes, arranged singly or in groups of 2--5, generally coiled in flower, generally elongating in fruit. Flower: bisexual, generally radial; sepals 5, free or fused at least at base; corolla 5-lobed, salverform, funnel-shaped, rotate, or bell-shaped, appendages (often called "fornices") 0 or 5 at top of tube, when present often differentially pigmented, alternate stamens; stamens epipetalous; ovary superior, 4-lobed, style 1, entire or minutely 2-lobed (2-branched). Fruit: nutlets 1--4, when > 1, all similar (often called "homomorphic") or 1 or 2 dissimilar in size and/or shape from the others (often called "heteromorphic"), free (fused), smooth to roughened, prickly or bristly or not.
Genera In Family: +- 90 genera, +- 1600--1700 species: mostly temperate, especially western North America, Mediterranean; some cultivated (Borago, Echium, Myosotis, Symphytum). Toxicity: Many genera may be TOXIC from pyrrolizidine alkaloids or accumulated nitrates. Note: Sometimes still treated in broader sense of TJM2 (e.g., APG IV 2016 Bot J Linn Soc 181:1--20), but recent evidence (Luebert et al. 2016) supports segregation, for our flora, of the families Ehretiaceae, Heliotropiaceae, Hydrophyllaceae, Lennoaceae, and Namaceae.
eFlora Treatment Author: Michael G. Simpson, C. Matt Guilliams, Kristen Hasenstab-Lehman & Ronald B. Kelley
Scientific Editor: Bruce G. Baldwin, C. Matt Guilliams, Kristen Hasenstab-Lehman, David J. Keil, Ronald B. Kelley, Robert W. Patterson, Thomas J. Rosatti & Michael G. Simpson

Common Name: COMFREY
Habit: Perennial herb; root thick, carrot-like. Stem: ascending to erect, internodes winged or not, sharp-bristly. Leaf: generally cauline, sharp-bristly; lower petioled; upper short-petioled to sessile; blade lanceolate to ovate, base decurrent or not. Inflorescence: terminal or axillary, generally peduncled, coiled. Flower: calyx deep-lobed, bristly, expanded in fruit; corolla bell- to +- urn-shaped, throat expanded above tube, appendages 5, alternate stamens, at same level at anthers, lance-linear to lanceolate [or not], papillate; stamens attached on upper tube; style exserted. Fruit: nutlets 1--4, ovoid; tip +- incurved; scar at base, +- flat with thick, ring-like, minute-toothed rim.
Etymology: (Greek: growing together, from putative healing properties) Toxicity: Seeds, herbage TOXIC to humans, livestock from pyrrolizidine alkaloids. Note: Ornamental, folk medicine, cultivated for forage.
eFlora Treatment Author: Ronald B. Kelley
Unabridged Reference: Gadella 1984 Ann Missouri Bot Gard 71:1061--1067