Its leaves are simple and alternate. The plant is rich in honey producing juices. Ants are quick to scatter its seeds surrounded by a sweet aril. The fresh plant tastes of a mixture of cucumber and shell fish, the young leaves are eaten in salads, in soup or as spinach. Borage is an old vegetable Germans still add to soups, omelettes and doughnuts.
Fresh flowers make salads look very nice but they can also be eaten candied, like sugar violets.
Allotted cardiac properties, borage is supposed to dissipate melancholia and cheer people up. Borage oil is sought after for its content in unsaturated fatty acids the importance of which is fundamental in certain metabolisms. They are also precursors of some constituents of the cell membrane phospholipids they ensure the fluidity of due to their stereochemical configuration. To obtain these molecules, several steps are necessary, some of which can be inhibited by diseases or by ageing. Borage oil has regenerative, firming and restructuring properties.