[7] Bugloss has leaves that are shaped like a narrow spear head (lance-linear), with the widest portion in the middle and tapering towards both ends.

[10] The native range of the species is in Europe from France into Russia west of the Ural Mountains and then south in to Kazakhstan.

[1] It has also been introduced to North America and is found on the Pacific coast from British Columbia to California and in many of the Rocky Mountain states including Idaho, Montana, Utah, and Colorado.

In the eastern US, it is found in Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Ontario, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin.

[1] Common alkanet grows in varied environments such as sandy grasslands in coastal dunes, wastelands that were formerly developed or farmed areas, in shrub communities, the slopes of former quarry sites, and along roadsides.

[3] In 2003 the botanists Federico Selvi and Massimo Bigazzi (1953–2006) published a paper where they better defined the relationship of ssp.

intacta with the rest of the species and found evidence that it originated from a hybridization event with the Anatolian relative Anchusa leptophylla.

The species name, or specific epithet, officinalis is an adjective used in medieval Latin meaning of a workshop.

[1] This name is a reference to the blue flowers suggesting the blueish tongue of a cow, from medieval Latin "buglossus", ox-toungued.

[40] It is of concern in agriculture both for competing with more desirable forage species in fields and for causing baled hay to rot due to the high moisture content of its leaves.

[41] Though in dry climates with typically freely draining soils, like Colorado, it known from relatively moist areas.

[46] Culpeper wrote of Anchusa officinalis under the names "alkanet", "orchanet", "Spanish bugloss", and "enchusa".

"[45][47][48] In European medical herbalism it was used prior to about 1810 for having "aperient and refrigerant" virtues (laxative and fever lowering).

However, the physician and botanist William Woodville wrote, "as all the common oloraceous plants are cooling and laxative, these properties are no peculiar recommendation of Bugloss.

"[49] The Greek physician in the 1st century Pedanius Dioscorides wrote of the astringent effect of the root of common bugloss.

The late medieval botanist Hieronymus Bock recommended it to treat depression and strengthen the heart.

[7] Though both Leonhart Fuchs and Bock wrote that it could be used to treat depression,[7] Woodville attributed all its supposed effectiveness to the fact that it was administered in wine.