Meadow saxifrage
Saxifraga granulata
Family · Saxifragaceae · Harmless
The white five-petalled flowers dotting mountain meadows and banks in spring, above a rosette of kidney-shaped leaves. Below ground there are grain-like bulbils, which give the name.
Uplands · Fields and pasture · Walls and rocks · Oak woods
Also known asfair maids of France, bulbous saxifrage
How to tell it
A basal rosette of kidney or fan-shaped leaves, the edge cut into rounded lobes, on a long stalk. A hairy glandular flowering stem with few leaves. White five-petalled flowers one to two centimetres, with fine visible veins. The stem base carries small red bulbils, like wheat grains.
What it is confused with
No dangerous lookalikes known in the Iberian Peninsula.
What it is for
Traditional medicinal use for kidney stones, which is where the scientific name and all the folk names come from: a plant that breaks rock was thought to break kidney stones. Traditional use, in the past, and the logic was the doctrine of signatures, not pharmacology.
With documented traditional uses. Not a therapeutic indication and not a dose.