#SYMPHYTUM UPLANDICA X SKIN#

#SYMPHYTUM UPLANDICA X SKIN#

“Clients who have torn muscles, popped tendons, twisted ankles or who have fragile skin are all helped by using comfrey leaf long infusion internally for several months, allowing those body parts to be less fragile, more-stretchy, and resilient,” she says. Internally, Wildwood says comfrey can be ingested as an herbal tea or infusion to treat, for example, gastric ulcers, rheumatic pain, arthritis, bronchitis, and colitis, and it’s her favorite way to use the dried leaves.

“The one with the purple or blue flowers is safe internally or externally because they have been bred to eliminate toxic pyrrolizidine alkaloids,” Wildwood explains, which can damage the liver. She says the best way to identify safe comfrey is by the color of the flowers. Wildwoods cautions that before you make any kind of infusion, however, you should be sure you’re using the correct species of comfrey, Symphytum uplandica x. You can even just rehydrate a large leaf with hot water, wrap it around a twisted ankle, then cover with plastic wrap or a towel.” Precautions “But if it is not a deep wound, it will heal wounds and strengthen skin. “An infused oil or ointment made of comfrey leaves or root speeds healing of wounds so effectively that one caution is that you cannot use it on a deep cut, because it will heal the top over so quickly that you can end up with an infection underneath,” she says. I also intend to use comfrey to help me extend my garden’s vitality well into the winter by drying the herb and then using it make a salve for cuts and scrapes, as well as for long infusions to drink throughout the season.Ĭomfrey can be applied externally as a salve, ointment, compress-or even just its leaves-to treat, for example, joint inflammatory disorders, wounds, bone fractures, and gout, according to Wildwood. Often, it is used as a green mulch to feed other plants I plan to till the leaves and flowers into the soil to enrich it for next year’s crop. Gardeners primarily grow the container friendly cultivar Russian Bocking 14, which can be identified by its purple flowers. It spreads vigorously and can grow almost anywhere-prolifically, so I keep it controlled in a pot. “Comfrey also has uses for the respiratory system, and can treat, for example, bronchitis and sore throats colitis, stomach inflammation, and ulcers and interstitial cystitis and overactive bladder.” Benefits of Comfrey

“Comfrey is so good at repairing bones that it is known as ‘knitbone,’ so the bone needs to be set correctly before you start using it,” she says. According to clinical herbalist Kathleen Wildwood, who founded the Verona, Wisc.-based Wildwood Institute, comfrey leaves, and especially the roots, contain a hefty amount of allantoin, a phytochemical, or plant chemical, that speeds up cell repair. Long dismissed as an invasive weed, gardeners are giving it a second look because of its powerful fertilizing and healing capabilities. One of my garden’s most resilient and beneficial perennial plants is comfrey.