Rock dock
Rumex induratus
Family · Polygonaceae · Irritating
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The dock that grows in quarries, walls and schist banks, with bluish heart-shaped leaves and clusters of winged fruits turning red then brown.
Walls and rocks · Uplands · Scrubland · Roadsides and waste ground
Also known ashardened dock
How to tell it
A bushy plant half a metre to a metre, often hanging from a wall. Heart or triangular leaves, bluish and slightly fleshy, on long stalks. The fruits have three broad rounded membranous wings that redden before drying and cover the plant in red in June.
What it is confused with
Horned dock
Rumex bucephalophorus
Both are sorrels and grow in the same kind of dry place. Horned dock is annual and small, with narrow leaves and horned fruits; rock dock is perennial and bushy, with bluish heart leaves and fruits with three broad rounded wings. Both carry oxalic acid and share the same limit.
Open sheet →What it is for
The leaves were eaten raw and in salads in Portugal and Spain, sour and refreshing, and there is a tradition of carrying them on mountain walks against thirst. The same brake applies as for all sorrels: oxalic acid, so small amounts and not every day.
Traditionally used as food. This is not permission to eat it.