Aconitum barbatumPatr. ex Pers.

WFO wfo-0000516959 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Aconitum barbatum, photographed by Pavel Komkov
fig. a Pavel Komkov, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-08-06 / obs. 150992301

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 17 botanical countries

Regions where Aconitum barbatum is native: Altay, Amur, Buryatiya, China North-Central, China Southeast, Chita, Inner Mongolia, Irkutsk, Kazakhstan, Khabarovsk, Krasnoyarsk, Manchuria, Mongolia, Tuva, West Siberia, Xinjiang, Yakutiya AltayAmurBuryatiyaChina North-CentralChina SoutheastChitaInner MongoliaIrkutskKazakhstanKhabarovskKrasnoyarskManchuriaMongoliaTuvaWest SiberiaXinjiangYakutiya
Native distribution of Aconitum barbatum, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Altay ALT ASIA-TEMPERATE
Amur AMU
Buryatiya BRY
China North-Central CHN
China Southeast CHS
Chita CTA
Inner Mongolia CHI
Irkutsk IRK
Kazakhstan KAZ
Khabarovsk KHA
Krasnoyarsk KRA
Manchuria CHM
Mongolia MON
Tuva TVA
West Siberia WSB
Xinjiang CHX
Yakutiya YAK

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Where it actually grows measured, from 1,044 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -28.2 °C -24.1 °C -17.1 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 17.9 °C 23.2 °C 24.3 °C
Annual rainfall 313 mm 463 mm 767 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 10 mm 34 mm 83 mm

It is found where winters are arctic. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 1,044 research-grade observations of Aconitum barbatum that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 22 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Aconitum barbatum subsp. pekinense (Vorosch.) Gubanov
  • Aconitum barbatum var. barbatum
  • Aconitum barbatum var. gmelinii (Rchb.) Ledeb. ex Maxim.
  • Aconitum barbatum var. parviflorum Reverd. & Polozhij
  • Aconitum borzaeanum Prodan
  • Aconitum gmelinii Rchb.
  • Aconitum hispidum DC.
  • Aconitum leptanthum Rchb.
  • Aconitum luteum H.Lév. & Vaniot
  • Aconitum lycoctonum var. barbatum (Pers.) Finet & Gagnep.
  • Aconitum lycoctonum var. barbatum (Patrin ex Pers.) Regel
  • Aconitum lycoctonum var. gmelinii (Rchb.) Regel
  • Aconitum lycoctonum var. ochranthum (C.A.Mey.) Regel
  • Aconitum lycoctonum var. sqarrosum (L. ex DC.) Regel
  • Aconitum nitidum Fisch. ex Steud.
  • Aconitum ochranthum C.A.Mey.
  • Aconitum pekinense Vorosch.
  • Aconitum sibiricum Poir.
  • Aconitum sqarrosum L. ex DC.
  • Lycoctonum barbatum (Pers.) Nakai
  • Lycoctonum ochranthum (C.A.Mey.) Nakai
  • Lycoctonum sibiricum (Poir.) Nakai

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.