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.
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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