Laurel-leaved rockrose
Cistus laurifolius
Family · Cistaceae · Harmless
The rockrose of the high inland sierras, the only one in the genus that takes cold and snow. It climbs above a thousand metres, where no other rockrose goes, and fills Central System slopes with white flowers in June.
Uplands · Scrubland · Pine woods · Oak woods
Also known aslaurel rockrose
How to tell it
Leathery lance-shaped leaves with a clear stalk, dark green above and white-felted beneath, much like a bay leaf's. Sticky to the touch. Large white flowers with a yellow centre, in groups of three to eight on a long stalk.
What it is confused with
Gum rockrose
Cistus ladanifer
The leaf: narrow and stalkless on common gum rockrose, broad with a clear stalk here. And altitude: the common one lives low down, this one above a thousand metres.
Open sheet →What it is for
Firewood and labdanum of poorer quality than common gum rockrose's. It is a structuring species of mountain scrub and one of the few that resprouts well after fire at altitude.