Whitish viper's bugloss
Echium nervosum
Family · Boraginaceae · Irritating
The echium of Madeira's low dry coasts, more compact and paler than the blue one, with deeply veined leaves that look engraved.
Dunes and sand · Scrubland · Walls and rocks
Also known asveined echium
How to tell it
A compact rounded shrub, silvery with hairs. Leaves in rosettes at the branch ends, with strongly marked, deeply impressed side veins, which gives the scientific name. A short dense, almost globular inflorescence, pale blue to whitish or pink. It grows near the sea. Range: endemic to Madeira.
What it is confused with
No dangerous lookalikes known in the Iberian Peninsula.
What it is for
No food use
A honey plant, like its blue cousin, and with the same rough hairs that irritate skin.
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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