Shrubby globularia
Globularia alypum
Family · Plantaginaceae · Irritating
The small shrub with blue globes that flowers in autumn and winter on the dry limestone of the east and south, when almost nothing else blooms. The heads look like tonsure crowns, hence the name.
Scrubland · Uplands · Walls and rocks
Also known asglobe daisy
How to tell it
Pale blue spherical heads, one to two centimetres, at the tips of short branches. Small leathery leaves with a point and sometimes three teeth at the apex. A low woody cushion, always on limestone.
What it is confused with
No dangerous lookalikes known in the Iberian Peninsula.
What it is for
It was a popular purgative throughout the Spanish Levant, and that is exactly why it is not tried: the dose between effect and violent cramps is narrow and cannot be judged at home.
With documented traditional uses. Not a therapeutic indication and not a dose.