Rock phagnalon
Phagnalon saxatile
Family · Asteraceae · Harmless
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The small grey shrublet emerging from rock crevices and road walls, with dry brownish buttons atop thin stalks. It always looks half dried out, and that is how it lives.
Walls and rocks · Scrubland · Uplands · Roadsides and waste ground
Also known asrock cudweed
How to tell it
Narrow, whitish grey leaves with down-rolled margins and a felted underside. Small brownish-yellow heads, solitary or in pairs at the tip of bare stalks.
What it is confused with
No dangerous lookalikes known in the Iberian Peninsula.
What it is for
The dried leaves served as tinder for striking fire with flint, the use behind its Spanish name. No food use.
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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