Borago officinalis (Borage, Star flower)

Borage is a Mediterranean plant, from the Family Boraginaceae, which has naturalised in Britain. It has been used medicinally since at least the time of Dioscorides (70AD) who recommended the leaves in wine for fevers and to ‘cause mirth’. This belief persisted into the 16th and 17th centuries in the writings of all the herbalists from Fuchs (1542) to Culpeper (1649 and later). Fuchs wrote that th…