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.
Where it grows
Walls and rocks · Scrubland · Uplands · Roadsides and waste ground
Also known asrock cudweed
In flower
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.