Silvery whitlow-wort
Paronychia argentea
Family · Caryophyllaceae · Harmless
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The prostrate mat dotted with silvery white patches that look like tissue paper, growing on trodden paths and southern sands. The patches are not flowers: they are bracts, and the flowers hide beneath them.
Roadsides and waste ground · Fields and pasture · Dunes and sand · Walls and rocks
Also known assilver nailwort
How to tell it
Prostrate stems in a flat rosette, with small opposite leaves. At the nodes, white bracts, dry and translucent like paper, covering the tiny flowers and giving the plant its silvery shine. It grows flat against the ground.
What it is confused with
No dangerous lookalikes known in the Iberian Peninsula.
What it is for
A traditional infusion across the Peninsula, especially in Spain, where it is still sold dried in herbalists. No food use.
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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