Shrubby gromwell
Lithodora fruticosa
Family · Boraginaceae · Irritating
The small rough shrub with bright blue flowers that lights up the dry inland limestone in April. It is a borage, and the flowers' intense blue gives the family away from afar.
Scrubland · Uplands · Walls and rocks
Also known asblue lithodora
How to tell it
Narrow, stiff, very rough leaves with down-rolled margins and flattened white hairs. Bright blue funnel flowers, sometimes purplish, with five lobes. A woody cushion half a metre tall, always on limestone.
What it is confused with
No dangerous lookalikes known in the Iberian Peninsula.
What it is for
A popular infusion in Spain, the name referring to the effect once attributed to it. A note that stays on the sheet: it is a borage, and the family carries hepatotoxic pyrrolizidine alkaloids, so it is not a plant for daily infusion.
With documented traditional uses. Not a therapeutic indication and not a dose.