Grey rock rose
Helianthemum cinereum
Family · Cistaceae · Harmless
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The creeping grey rock rose of bare limestone, with small yellow flowers opening in the morning sun and falling before lunch. It is among the first to flower in dry scrub.
Uplands · Scrubland · Fields and pasture · Roadsides and waste ground
Also known asashy sun rose
How to tell it
A low prostrate subshrub with opposite, small leaves covered in star-shaped hair giving a uniform grey tone on both sides. Yellow flowers one to two centimetres, in short racemes of three to eight. No stipules at the leaf-stalk base, which separates it from common rock rose.
What it is confused with
Common rock rose
Helianthemum nummularium
The flowers are identical. Look at the leaf-stalk base: common rock rose has two fine visible stipules, the grey one has none. And this is uniformly grey on both leaf faces. Neither is harmful.
Open sheet →What it is for
No use. Like the others in the genus it forms mycorrhizae with soil fungi and is a limestone plant: where it dominates, the ground is stony, dry and alkaline.