Hoary plantain
Plantago media
Family · Plantaginaceae · Harmless
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The prettiest plantain of all: the short spike covers itself in lilac-pink stamens that make it look like a pink hair brush, and it smells faintly of honey.
Fields and pasture · Uplands · Roadsides and waste ground
Also known aslamb's tongue
How to tell it
A rosette of broad oval leaves lying flat on the ground, covered in short hair giving them a greyish tone, with a very short or absent stalk. A leafless stem with a short dense spike, which in flower is covered in long lilac-pink stamens. It prefers limestone. Range: mainly a Spanish plant, practically absent from Portugal.
What it is confused with
Greater plantain
Plantago major
Greater plantain has smooth green leaves on a long distinct stalk, and a long green spike; hoary plantain has grey hairy leaves with almost no stalk, and a short pink spike. Both were used the same way.
What it is for
It shares the other plantains' traditional uses: crushed leaf on stings and surface grazes, and young leaves cooked in soups. Traditional use, in the past. It is one of the few plantains pollinated by insects and not only by wind, hence the scent.
Traditionally used as food. This is not permission to eat it.
With documented traditional uses. Not a therapeutic indication and not a dose.
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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