Willow-leaved carline
Carlina salicifolia
Family · Asteraceae · Harmless
The island carline, which unlike its mainland cousins barely pricks: narrow leaves like a willow's and heads of golden bracts that shine on sunlit escarpments.
Walls and rocks · Scrubland · Dunes and sand · Uplands
Also known asMadeira carline thistle
How to tell it
A subshrub with a woody base, with narrow elongated leaves, green above and whitish beneath, the edge barely spiny. Heads with a crown of dry, narrow, golden yellow bracts radiating around a brown disc, as in mainland carlines. Range: Madeira and the Canaries.
What it is confused with
Spanish carline thistle
Carlina hispanica
The golden crowns are the same. The mainland one has deeply cut, well-armed leaves; the Madeiran has narrow entire leaves, almost spineless. And they do not overlap geographically.
What it is for
No use
As in mainland carlines, the bracts open in sun and close in damp, which makes it a hygrometer that stands for months after drying.
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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