# Borage (Borago officinalis)

**Boragine**

**Known today as.** *Borago officinalis*.

Kind: Plant  
Qualities: Hot and moist (Galenic tradition).  
Poisoning: Pyrrolizidine alkaloids (veno-occlusive disease) (https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/poisons/pyrrolizidine)  
Toxic: yes

> **Caution.** 

## What did Canale use it for?

Juice, water, syrup, and flowers in the preparatives, a “cordial” to cheer the melancholic (chs. 3–4, 7).

## What does modern science say?

The plant contains liver-toxic pyrrolizidine alkaloids, and products made from it are best avoided.

## Pharmacognosy and toxicology

- **gamma-linolenic acid**: 20–25 per cent of the seed oil
- **amabiline**: a pyrrolizidine alkaloid of the leaf and flower
- **thesinine**: 
- **mucilage**: 

**Mechanism.** The leaf is cooling by its mucilage and potassium salts and nothing else; the cheer it gave the melancholic was the wine it was floated in. The seed oil’s gamma-linolenic acid feeds anti-inflammatory prostaglandins and is given for eczema, with meta-analyses finding no benefit. The leaf’s pyrrolizidine alkaloids are low but real.

**Dose.** The leaf and flower should not be taken daily on account of the alkaloids; the seed oil is free of them.

**Standing.** No EMA monograph for the leaf; the seed oil is sold as a supplement, and a Cochrane review (2013) found it no better than placebo for eczema.

## What lore surrounds it?

“In former days, Borage (Borago officinalis) was noted as one of the four ‘cordial flowers’ most deserving of esteem for cheering the spirits—the other three being the Rose, Violet, and Alkanet.” Folkard gives the old Latin rhyme “Ego Borago gaudia semper ago,” and says all the old herbalists agree with Pliny “that when put into wine the leaves and flowers of Borage make men and women glad and merry, driving away all sadness, dulness, and melancholy.” The “cool tankard” of our forefathers was “young shoots and blossoms of Borage mingled with wine, water, lemon, and sugar,” and astrologers made it “one of Jupiter's cordials.”

Thiselton-Dyer records the Cingalese notion “that the vervain and borage will only thrive near man's dwellings,” and Burton's frontispiece verse, “Borage and hellebore fill two scenes, Sovereign plants to purge the veins Of melancholy, and cheer the heart Of those black fumes which make it smart.”

Grieve gives the derivations: Borago as a corruption of “corago, from cor, the heart, and ago, I bring, because of its cordial effect,” or from the Low Latin burra, a flock of wool, for its hairy coat, or Henslow's Celtic barrach, “a man of courage.” She quotes Gerarde's old verse, “Ego Borago” … “Gaudia semper ago,” and the syrup of the flowers that “comforteth the heart, purgeth melancholy and quieteth the phrenticke and lunaticke person,” adds that “according to Dioscorides and Pliny, Borage was the famous Nepenthe of Homer,” and Evelyn's “Sprigs of Borage are of known virtue to revive the hypochrondriac and cheer the hard student.”

## What did the older authorities say?

**The medieval herbalists.** “*Ego borago gaudia semper ago*”: “I, borage, always bring gladness.” Some identified it with the gladdening herb of Pliny.

## Sources

- Grieve, M. *A Modern Herbal*, “Borage.” As published on botanical.com.
- Folkard, R. (1884). *Plant Lore, Legends, and Lyrics*, “Borage.” Project Gutenberg #44638.
- Thiselton-Dyer, T. F. (1889). *The Folk-lore of Plants*. Project Gutenberg #10118.
- Grieve, M. (1931). *A Modern Herbal*, “Borage.” botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/b/borage66.html
- Bamford, J. T. M., et al. (2013). “Oral evening primrose oil and borage oil for eczema.” *Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews* 4.
- Dodson, C. D., and Stermitz, F. R. (1986). “Pyrrolizidine alkaloids from borage.” *Journal of Natural Products* 49.

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*Borage.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-01. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/borage

Historical description, not medical advice.