Rosemary-leaved rockrose
Cistus clusii
Family · Cistaceae · Harmless
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The rockrose disguised as rosemary: identical narrow rolled leaves, but with clusters of white flowers instead of blue ones held against the branch. It grows on the dry limestone of the east and south.
Scrubland · Uplands · Roadsides and waste ground
Also known asClusius's rockrose
How to tell it
Very narrow, dark green leaves with down-rolled margins and a white underside, exactly like rosemary's. The difference is in the flower: clusters of white, five crumpled-petalled flowers at the branch tips.
What it is confused with
Rosemary
Salvia rosmarinus
The leaf is practically identical, so it is no use. Rub it: rosemary smells of rosemary, this smells of nothing. And rosemary has blue flowers against the branch, this has a cluster of white flowers at the tip.
What it is for
No relevant use
It counts as a warning that a leaf alone is not enough to identify: here two completely different families arrived at the same leaf by living in the same dry place.
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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