Viper's bugloss
Echium vulgare
Family · Boraginaceae · Irritating
The bright blue wand covered in soft bristles that lights up mountain verges in high summer. The flowers open pink and turn blue, so the same plant always shows both colours at once.
Roadsides and waste ground · Uplands · Fields and pasture · Dunes and sand
Also known asblueweed, blue devil
How to tell it
The whole plant is rough, covered in stiff bristles set on reddish warty bases. Bright blue funnel flowers with red stamens protruding well beyond, along curved branches. A basal rosette of narrow rough leaves.
What it is confused with
Purple viper's bugloss
Echium plantagineum
Cousins and both toxic to eat. Purple viper's bugloss has purple-blue flowers and broad basal leaves like a plantain's; this has brighter blue flowers, narrow leaves and bristles on reddish bases.
Open sheet →What it is for
A first-rate nectar plant, among the best there are for bees on dry ground. Not a plant to eat: like all borages, it contains pyrrolizidine alkaloids, toxic to the liver.
With documented traditional uses. Not a therapeutic indication and not a dose.