Branched asphodel
Asphodelus ramosus
Family · Asphodelaceae · Irritating
The tall branched spike covered in white flowers each segment striped brown, blanketing whole slopes of degraded scrub in spring. Where there is a lot of asphodel, there was fire or too much grazing.
Scrubland · Fields and pasture · Roadsides and waste ground · Montado
Also known aswhite asphodel, king's spear
How to tell it
Broad basal leaves, flattened into bluish straps, rising from a tuft of tuberous roots. A sturdy stem one to one and a half metres, much branched, with dozens of white six-parted flowers, each with a brown or reddish midvein. Round green fruits the size of a large pea.
What it is confused with
Onionweed
Asphodelus fistulosus
The leaves decide: broad and flat on great asphodel, cylindrical and hollow like straws on onionweed. And the great one is far taller and sturdier. Neither is eaten.
Open sheet →What it is for
The tubers were eaten in extreme famine after repeated boiling, and served mainly to make glue and alcohol. Raw they are astringent and irritant. Livestock will not eat it, which is why it dominates overgrazed pasture: it is what is left.