In message
,
Dave Poole writes
I don't know whether this is of any help, but a similar plant used to
grow in the hedgerows and ditches in the Midlands. I had it as
Symphytum orientale - less coarse than the more common comfreys and is
(or at least was) quite widespread although I've not seen it down here
in the SW, so my memory of it is a bit vague.

I don't know Symphytum orientale, which appears to have its headquarters
in East Anglia and the South East, but which also occurs in the
Gloucestershire, Somerset, Dorset area.

It was the red immature flowers that had caused me to eliminate that,
but Stace tells me that S. orientale has a shallowly lobed calyx, and
the plant I photographed has a very deeply lobed calyx, which seems to
be sufficient to reject S. orientale as an identification. I'm now
leaning to Symphytum grandiflorum, which isn't illustrated in my books.

To add to the confusion, I have photographs recorded as S. grandiflorum
from Ness Botanic Gardens from 2004 and 2005. It would appear that these
are different plants, and the latter is quite possibly S. officinale. It
appears that I'd assumed that I'd photographed the same plant in
successive years when I hadn't.

Neither is common round here, but according to the BSBI, S. grandiflorum
is the most recorded after S. x uplandicum and S. officinale.
--
Stewart Robert Hinsley