Echium pininana is sometimes called Giant Viper's Bugloss or Tree Echium; they grow to three or four metres tall so words like giant or tree are not misplaced.
 I have written several entries in the last year or two noting that they hail from the Canary Islands but are naturalising in some warmer parts of the country including London and South West England. I saw this trio in the village of Abbotsbury in Dorset a few weeks ago.
 Unusually E. pininana is triennial i.e. it puts on a rosette of leaves in the first year, grows to about a metre in the second year (as above) then reaches full stature in year three when it flowers then seeds prolifically before dying.

 I posted an entry back in June observing this magnificent colony in St. James's Park in the heart of central London. Strange and wonderful to see these exotic triffids making themselves at home in a charming English village and within a stone's throw of Buckingham Palace.