Hedgehog broom
Erinacea anthyllis
Family · Fabaceae · Irritating
The spiny cushion of the high limestone sierras, so compact and so hard you could sit on it without crushing it. In May it covers itself in violet-blue flowers, and it is one of the most surprising sights in the Iberian mountains.
Uplands
Also known asblue broom, branch thorn
How to tell it
A hemispherical, grey, rigid cushion of interwoven branches all ending in spines. Tiny, short-lived leaves. Violet-blue pea flowers emerging straight from among the spines. Only at altitude, above a thousand metres.
What it is confused with
No dangerous lookalikes known in the Iberian Peninsula.
What it is for
None
The cushion form is an answer to wind, frost and grazing: inside it creates its own microclimate, and many rare mountain plants germinate under these cushions.
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.