This tool aids identification but does not replace an expert. Never eat a wild plant or fungus on the strength of a single feature. When in doubt, throw it out.
Borage can be confused with 1 dangerous plant/fungus. Check every distinguishing feature before you trust an identification.
All parts contain heart poisons; the non-flowering leaf rosette is easily mistaken for comfrey, mullein or borage, and ingestion causes nausea, disturbed colour vision and dangerous, potentially fatal heart-rhythm disturbances.
Confusable part: Pre-flowering rosette leaves gathered for cooking (salads, savoury pies, pasta fillings).
Foxglove's soft, wrinkled first-year leaves closely resemble borage leaves gathered for food, and the mix-up is repeatedly documented — including people who developed high digitoxin levels and heart block after eating a few 'borage' leaves, one batch bought from a nursery mislabelled as borage. Foxglove leaves contain cardiac glycosides and can be fatal.
How to tell them apart
- Borage leaves bear coarse, stiff, bristly hairs that feel rough or prickly; foxglove leaves are softly downy and velvety.
- Crushed borage foliage smells clearly of cucumber; foxglove foliage has no cucumber smell.
- In flower they are unmistakable: borage has bright blue five-pointed star flowers with a black central cone; foxglove has tall one-sided spikes of pendulous tubular thimble flowers. Do not identify from leaves alone if you can wait for flowers.
Rub and crush a leaf: borage feels coarse and bristly and smells of cucumber; a soft, velvety leaf with no cucumber smell should be treated as foxglove — do not eat it.
Educational identification aid compiled from the Omnia Sana plant database and cited botanical and toxicological sources. Not medical advice and not a substitute for expert identification.