Phagnalon rupestre (L.) D. C.

Family: COMPOSITAE (ASTERACEAE)

Genus: Phagnalon

Province distribution: Alacant. Balearic Islands. Barcelona. Castelló. Girona. Lleida. Tarragona. València.

Distribution in the islands: Mallorca. Menorca. Ibiza. Formentera. Dragonera.

General distribution (Phytogeography): Mediterranean

IUCN Category: LCLeast concern

Life-forms: Chameophyte.

Habitats: Cultivated fields, path and road sides, disturbed zones. Pine wood and shrubland with rosemary and thyme garigue. Rocky surfaces and dry stone walls. Stony soils, walls.

Characteristics: A small shrub that colonizes abandoned cereal cropped fields, also can be found atop of stonewalls and rocks. Leaves have undulate margins, dark green in colour on the obverse and whitish on the reverse. Very similar to Phagnalon saxatile, but can be told apart by its wider leaves and above all by the obtuse and applied bracts of the involucre.