White plantain
Plantago albicans
Family · Plantaginaceae · Harmless
The silvery plantain of dry and saline soils of the south and interior, covered in white hairs that make it shine. It is one of the few plants that takes trampling, drought and salt at once.
Fields and pasture · Roadsides and waste ground · Scrubland · Dunes and sand
Also known assilvery plantain
How to tell it
Narrow long leaves covered in silky white hairs on both sides, with three to five parallel veins. A whitish dense spike on a hairy stalk. The whole plant looks grey or silver.
What it is confused with
Hare's-foot plantain
Plantago lagopus
Both hairy with a pale spike. Hare's-foot has a short oval spike like a hare's paw and green leaves; this has an elongated spike and clearly silvery leaves.
What it is for
No food use
Plantain seeds are mucilaginous and served as a mild laxative, the use behind the Spanish name for the group.
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.