Herbariuma Backpackers project
← All plants

Wild madder

Rubia peregrina

Family · Rubiaceae · Irritating

Traditional use
Wild madder (Rubia peregrina)Wild madder (Rubia peregrina)
Hectonichus, CC BY-SA 3.0 · Jowaninpensans, CC BY-SA 4.0

The climber with hard whorled leaves that scratches as you pass and clings to your legs on any southern shortcut. Its Portuguese name says what happens if you try the obvious.

Where it grows

Scrubland · Oak woods · Walls and rocks · Montado

Also known as

levant madder

In flower
In fruit

How to tell it

Leathery glossy leaves in whorls of four to six, with curved prickles on the margin and midrib. A four-angled stem, also armed. Evergreen. Black berries in autumn.

What it is confused with

Cleavers

Galium aparine

Harmless confusion

Squeeze a stem: cleavers is soft and crushes, wild madder is stiff and resists. And wild madder has a hard glossy leaf that lasts through winter.

Open sheet →

What it is for

The root gives a strong red and was an important textile dye, a cousin of cultivated madder. The berries are not eaten. It is a plant that scratches, not one to gather.

With documented traditional uses. Not a therapeutic indication and not a dose.

Sources