A Herb of Jupiter, and Gladness of Heart

Culpeper placed borage under Jupiter and the sign of Leo, the planet of expansive good cheer, which matched its ancient character exactly, and he repeats its use to comfort the heart and lift the spirits, given here as folk history. In the language of flowers and in folk correspondence borage stands for courage, bluntness and gladness, its bright blue star a natural emblem of a clear and cheerful spirit. Its symbolism is unusually stable across two thousand years: from Pliny to the herbalists to the Victorian flower-book, borage is the plant of good courage and a glad heart, meanings read from its heartening effect in wine and the frank blue of its flower.

Its bright blue star-shaped flowers were among those Elizabethan confectioners crystallised in sugar to decorate cakes and sweetmeats, a genuine piece of Tudor and Stuart sugar craft that survives today in a much smaller way, borage flowers still occasionally candied or floated fresh in punches and summer cocktails for exactly the same reason, their colour and shape rather than any flavour, since the bloom itself is nearly tasteless. The custom of adding a sprig of fresh borage to a glass of Pimm's or a summer cup, still followed in parts of England, is one of the very few pieces of borage's old cheer-giving reputation to have survived into ordinary modern drinking practice essentially unbroken from Pliny's wine-steeped remedy for sorrow.