DISTRIBUTION OF THE COMFREYS IN ESSEX 291
it from Russia in 1870. Henry Doubleday was a well-known Essex
seedmerchant and botanist and lived at Coggeshall (82). Although
it is still stocked by Essex seedsmen it is used much less here than
on the Continent and I have not yet seen it as a crop. This seems
a little surprising as it appears to be very tolerant of the damp
London Clay and boulder clay soils of much of this county and
Schindlmayr (1957) shows that it is more productive of green feed
than any other crop normally grown for the purpose save for
kale and cabbage.
Two of the localities where S. x uplandicum is found most
spectacularly are at Liston on the Stour (84) and at Bradwell on
the Blackwater (82). At Liston it was abundant along the river
and has now migrated into the village, while at Bradwell it is still
confined to the riverside. Here there is an astonishing variety of
forms in every shade of pink and purple and S. T. Jermyn tells me
that S. officinale is present also. According to Tutin (1956) one
might have expected some individual plants close to S. asperum;
none were in fact found and this supports Wade's contention
(Wade, 1958) that S. x uplandicum is a fixed hybrid and becomes
subject to great variation only when crossed back with S.
officinale.
The Soft Comfrey Symphytum orientale L. This most attrac-
tive Comfrey with pure white flowers and branching habit was
introduced as a garden plant and has escaped or survived in a
number of grassy places and hedgebanks in East Anglia and
adjacent regions. Kent & Lousley (1954) state that it was intro-
duced for fodder as well as being grown in gardens for its flowers
but the evidence in the London area was interpreted by Bangerter
& Welch (1953) as showing that, "It is obviously of garden origin
in our area". This would certainly seem to be true also of the
stations I know in North Kent, between Dartford and Rochester,
while the Essex sites, though not all inconsistent with an agri-
cultural origin, are more indicative of garden escapes and include
Castle Hedingham (73), a rubbish tip at Leigh (88), old cottages
at Bovington (72), near houses at Good Easter (61), near Brick-
house Farm at Great Braxted (81), and an older record for Saffron
Walden Castle (53). This last was made in 1928, and it has not
been reported there since that date. All but the Leigh station
are in the north, vice-county 19, and it would be interesting to
know whether it was the seedsmen in this area that popularised it.
A number of other species of Comfrey have been claimed as
escapes in this part of the country, but not, so far, in Essex. The
least rare of these is S. grandiflorum DC. It has yellowish-white
flowers and a distinctive habit; low-growing, small-leaved and
with creeping sterile shoots. It occurs in Kent and Surrey and
might be found in grassy places and hedgebanks in our county.
The blue-flowered S. caucasicum M. Bieb. and white-flowered S.
tauricum Willd. have been very rarely recorded.