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Side by side
What tells them apart
Touch the leaf: gum rockrose is sticky and smells of resin, sage-leaved rockrose is dry and rough. And gum rockrose is much taller.
Harmless confusion
How to tell it
An oval, dull green leaf, deeply wrinkled and rough, with nothing sticky about it. White five-petalled flowers with a yellow centre, lasting a single day.
How to tell it
Touch a leaf: it turns sticky. That resin, labdanum, is the definitive tell, and on a hot day you smell it from a distance. Narrow dark leaves, joined in pairs at the base.