United States / Grow / Cretan rockrose

Cretan rockrose

Cistus villosus (accepted: Cistus creticus) · Cistaceae · all Cistus records · also called Purple rockrose · syn. Cistus villosus · Wikipedia

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Form
shrub
Rated in
California
On this lot

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence
Mixed evidence — location does not change the cited classification.
Placement evidence
2 source placement records; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions
California
Typed publication scope: 1 scope across 1 cited fire source
  • Fire Performance of Common Plants (Guide to Plants) · Official scoped edition
    • CA; partial normalized coverage · 2026-08-29

      The guide presents itself as fire performance ratings for common landscape plants in a fire-prone California setting. FireApproved publishes 104 exact owners as republished California context. It is not an independent rating, a current endorsement, or parcel suitability.

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution
Documented in CA.

3. Legal, ecological, and broader status

How to read this page

The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.

Where its sources say to plant it

Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating. They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.

The evidence

Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself (a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.

Recommends (1)

Corroboration (1 rows from 1 source)
  • Fire Performance of Common Plants (Guide to Plants) — Diablo Firesafe Council · live page captured 2026-08-29 · original source Corroboration Mirror lineage: ucfpl-berkeley resolves to Defensible Space Landscaping in the Urban/Wildland Interface: A Compilation of Fire Performance Ratings of Residential Landscape Plants

    “Table 1: favorable fire performance rating in 3 or more references (refs 9,19,22,37)”

    The Diablo Firesafe Council Guide to Plants lists Cistus villosus prostratus (C.salviifolius) (Purple rockrose, Prostrate rockrose) as groundcover, evergreen, in Table 1: plants with a favorable fire performance rating in 3 or more references. The guide cites 4 of its 57 numbered references for this row (9,19,22,37). The guide states the ranking terms in its underlying references were mostly undefined and makes no attempt to rank within the list, and that fire performance is compromised without maintenance.

Mid-scale / conditional (1)

Fire-resistant shrubs instead

Last verified 2026-08-25. JSON (CC BY 4.0)

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Cistus villosus (Purple rockrose). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/cistus-villosus/. Last verified 2026-08-25.