Montpellier rockrose
Cistus monspeliensis
Family · Cistaceae · Harmless
The dark narrow rockrose that fills southern pine woods and scrub after fire. Small white flowers, many at a time, and a resinous smell that stays on your hands.
Scrubland · Pine woods · Montado · Dunes and sand
Also known asnarrow-leaved cistus
How to tell it
Very narrow, dark green, wrinkled leaves with rolled margins, set crosswise. Small white flowers grouped on one side of the stem. Slightly sticky and strongly aromatic.
What it is confused with
Sage-leaved rockrose
Cistus salviifolius
The leaf separates them: sage-leaved rockrose has a broad oval leaf like sage, Montpellier rockrose a narrow long one. Both white-flowered and both harmless.
What it is for
Kindling and livestock bedding in the past. Today it counts mostly as a reading of the slope: a dense stand means fire a few years ago.
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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