Umbellate halimium
Halimium umbellatum
Family · Cistaceae · Harmless
The shrub with narrow rosemary-like leaves and white five-petalled flowers with a yellow spot, dominating sandy scrub and pinewoods after fire.
Scrubland · Pine woods · Uplands · Dunes and sand
Also known aswhite halimium
How to tell it
A shrub half a metre to a metre, with narrow linear leaves, dark green above and white beneath, margins rolled under. White flowers one to two centimetres, with a yellow patch at each petal base, gathered in false umbels at the top. It smells of resin in the heat.
What it is confused with
Yellow halimium
Halimium halimifolium
Flower colour separates them: yellow on common halimium, white with a yellow spot on this. And common halimium's leaves are broad and silvery, this one's are fine like rosemary.
Open sheet →What it is for
No use. It is a pyrophyte: it burns well and comes back fast from the seed bank, which is why it dominates burnt areas. Where there is a lot of halimium, there was a recent fire.