Field madder
Sherardia arvensis
Family · Rubiaceae · Harmless
The tiny herb with pink flowers in a tight button that covers cornfields and lawns in spring. You have to kneel to see it, and from then on it is everywhere.
Fields and pasture · Roadsides and waste ground · Town and roadside
Also known asblue field madder
How to tell it
Prostrate, with small leaves in whorls of four to six, like the other madders but in miniature. Very small lilac-pink flowers grouped in a button ringed by star-like bracts.
What it is confused with
No dangerous lookalikes known in the Iberian Peninsula.
What it is for
The root gives a red dye, like its larger cousins, but is so small it never had practical use. It serves as an indicator of cultivated and disturbed ground.
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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