The fruits are segmented into four egg-shaped nutlets whose surfaces are brown, dull, and finely granular.

Symphytum officinale has decurrent leaf bases, winged stem internodes, and seeds with shiny black surfaces.

The epithet uplandicum refers to the Swedish province of Uppland, where the observation for the official first formal scientific species description was made by Carl Frederik Nyman and published in 1855 in Sylloge Florae Europaeae.

[2] Its hybrid vigour (→yield potential) makes Russian comfrey the preferred Symphytum crop.

After two years of establishment, the robust and easy perennial crop enables highest protein yields.

However, concerns about possible liver damage due to prolonged uptake of the pyrrolizidine alkaloids contained in the plant have been a cause for restraint in its use for some time, especially in food use (the "comfrey crisis").

They are made into a salve that accelerates wound healing[10] and relieves muscle and joint pain, among other things.

As the plant can accept rather aggressive raw manure in larger amounts, it can be used to convert it into a more amenable fertiliser.

Catherine II traditionally employed garden masters from England or Scotland at her palace in St. Petersburg.

In this capacity, Joseph Busch had, since the late 18th century, planted beds of prickly and common comfrey, flowering side by side for an interesting contrast of colour, and had already sent various comfrey plants to his business successor back in London.

Having experimented with prickly comfrey for agricultural use since 1810, gardener and inventor Henry Doubleday heard of comfrey's sticky properties when he was searching for a substitute for the unreliable supply of gum arabic, hoping to be able to develop a new adhesive for postage stamps.

The imperial gardener did not touch his predecessor's well-established plantings, but instead he sent chance seedlings that had grown between the rows: F1 hybrids of prickly and common comfrey.