2 Plant IDs

[reservoircats]

I have two plants and I don't know what they are.

I feel like the first one might be some sort of tree?

The first one looks like a horse chestnut tree(conker tree)

The second one is familiar but I cannot think what it is. I shall have a google.

Looks like a forget me not but the leaves arent right. I'll keep looking.

#1 is a tree seedling, probably sycamore maybe horse chestnut. #2 is a borrige plant

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borage Forgot to link

I use the app called Plantsnap. You take a photo with your phone and it immediately identifies the plant for you.

Possibly a blue comfrey.

Have you tried one of the plant photo apps? Plant snap is supposed to be a good app.

No 1 is definitely a sycamore. Get rid asap, unless you live in the Hundred Acre Wood

No 2 is a native plant I think, the name escapes me at the moment.

It's not comfrey.

Look up Brunnera Macrophylla it might be that.

Ah, got No 2 now. It's green alkanet.

First one horse chestnut - unless you want a tree pull it up!

Second one is comfrey - which is technically a weed, but I do keep some at the bottom of hedges because the bees love it. Caution though, it spreads like hell, and has really long tap roots, so you have to pull up new plants every year, otherwise it will take over.

Get rid of both immediately
The blue one has very long deep tap roots, make sure you get it all out

The first one is NOT a horse chestnut!!! It does not have horse chestnut-shaped leaves, it has acer-shaped leaves.

I have both horse chestnut and sycamore (and about 50 other species of tree) within about 20 metres of where I'm sitting right now.

The second one os NOT comfrey!!! Comfrey is only just starting to grow at the moment and is nowhere near flowering. The leaves and flowers are a completely different shape anyway.

Just in case you are wondering why I'm starting to get a litt frustrated on this thread... I manage a small area of woodland as a nature reserve, and my main hobby is propagating and growing trees. I also work at a tree nursery one day a week (well I usually do, can't at the moment).

Yamadori is correct, no. 2 is alkanet. Technically a weed, but if you like it (and bees love it) you can always let it stay for now. Keep an eye, though, because it spreads fast. If you do pull it up, wear gloves, it's a bit prickly.

I didn't mean to repeat almost exactly what Baaaahhhhh said! But it is alkanet and you'd be better off digging it up.

God sycamore is a headache. I Pull them up. I let the alkanet grow where nothing else is as it's quite brutish.

Thank you so much everyone :)

Sycamore is classed as a nuisance tree I think. It isn't really a native tree either. MIL gets hundreds of seedlings every year, blown in from the tree on the council's verge near her garden.

Borage flowers are edible, you can have them in Pimms.

The first one is sycamore, Acer pseudoplatanus. It cannot be a horse chestnut because horse chestnut has separate leaflets.

The second one is green alkanet, Pentaglottis sempervirens. It's not comfrey (although it's in the same family) because comfrey normally has white or purple flowers and even the blue ones are a softer blue, and comfrey flowers are more tubular, not flat like these. Although it's the right colour for borage (also in the same family) borage flowers are larger and a different shape, as you can see from Owl's link. Brunnera has its flowers on stems that hold them clear of the leaves. Pandora's comment that it look like a forget-me-not was spot on - comfrey, borage, Brunnera, green alkanet are all in the forget-me-not/borage family Boraginaceae.

yamadori Thanks for that -I wondered about your background because your bonsai advice has always been so good.

@MereDintofPandiculation

Most of my 200+ trees are small ones!

Namechange fail there...

I thought the second was foxglove.