Agrimony
Agrimonia eupatoria
Family · Rosaceae · Harmless
The tall straight stem covered in small yellow flowers from bottom to top, like a church steeple, standing on verges and wood edges. The fruits catch on clothes with hooks.
Roadsides and waste ground · Fields and pasture · Oak woods · Uplands
Also known aschurch steeples, sticklewort
How to tell it
An upright hairy stem to a metre. Compound leaves with large toothed leaflets alternating with very small ones, which is the genus's immediate mark. A long narrow spike of yellow five-petalled flowers, opening from the bottom up. Fruits like a grooved bell with a crown of hooks.
What it is confused with
No dangerous lookalikes known in the Iberian Peninsula.
What it is for
It was among Europe's most used medicinal plants, in gargles and wound compresses, and still turns up in teas. Traditional use, in the past. It also gave a yellow dye for wool.
With documented traditional uses. Not a therapeutic indication and not a dose.
Where it occurs
Each square is an area with recorded observations of this plant. The lighter background is the set of areas where any of the entries has been observed, and serves as a reference. Note what this is not: it is not where the plant lives, it is where people record it, so trails and towns always look fuller than the mountains. Data from GBIF.
Sources
Community
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