Atractylis humilis

Atractylis humilis is a small spiny perennial herb of the daisy family (Asteraceae) native to dry, sunny Mediterranean habitats of the Iberian Peninsula and North Africa. It grows from a stout, woody taproot in low, almost stemless tufts, the few short flowering stems rising only 5-25 cm above the ground. The alternate, sessile leaves are oblong-lanceolate, leathery, deeply pinnatifid into rigid, spine-tipped lobes and arranged in a basal rosette. In summer the plant produces solitary, terminal flower heads 3-5 cm across, the involucre tightly enclosed by stiff, pinnate, spiny outer bracts and inner bracts that spread as showy, pinkish-purple to lilac pseudo-rays around a centre of tubular hermaphrodite florets. The fruit is a dry, pubescent achene with a long, plumose pappus of feathery hairs. The species occupies stony, sun-baked grasslands, garrigue and roadsides on calcareous soils. Roots of the genus contain highly hepatotoxic and nephrotoxic atractyloside-type diterpenoid glycosides.