Curry plant
Helichrysum serotinum
Family · Asteraceae · Harmless
The silver subshrub that smells intensely of curry when touched, and whose yellow heads dry without losing colour, standing all winter.
Dunes and sand · Scrubland · Roadsides and waste ground · Uplands
Also known asItalian strawflower, immortelle
How to tell it
Very narrow, nearly linear leaves covered in dense white hair giving the plant a uniform silver tone. Small golden yellow heads gathered in dense corymbs at the top. The smell is the test: strong, warm and unmistakably curry, and it stays on the fingers.
What it is confused with
Everlasting
Helichrysum stoechas
They are very close and both are scented. This has narrower leaves and a clearly curry-like smell; everlasting smells more of honey and resin. Neither is harmful.
What it is for
Used in traditional infusions and its essential oil is prized in perfumery. The name curry plant comes from the smell, not the use: it is not the curry of Indian cooking and the taste is bitter and resinous. Traditional use, in the past.
With documented traditional uses. Not a therapeutic indication and not a dose.
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
No approved contributions for this entry yet.
Nothing appears here without a person reading it first. Contributions do not replace the entry or its warnings: until a botanist confirms, what is written above stands.