Bugloss.
Buglossum hortense.
Anchusa -species contain livertoxic pyrrolizidine alkaloids. Read more here. -Henriette
A ROUGH and unsightly plant kept in our gardens for the sake of its virtues, but very rarely used. It grows to a foot and a half high; the leaves are rough like those of borage, but they are long and narrow, of a deep green colour, and rough surface. The stalks are also covered with a rough and almost prickly hairiness. The same sort of leaves stand on these as rise immediately from the root, only smaller. The flowers stand at the tops of the branches, and are very pretty, though not very large; they are red when they first open, but they afterwards become blue, the root is long and brown. It flowers in June and July.
Bugloss shares with borage the credit of being a cordial; but perhaps neither of them have any great title to the character; it is used like borage, in cool tankards; for there is no way of making any regular preparation of it, that is possessed of any virtues.
There is a wild kind of bugloss upon ditch banks (Probably Anchusa arvensis. -Henriette), very like the garden kind, and of the same virtues.
