Adonis aestivalisL.

summer pheasant's eyesummer pheasant's-eyesummer pheasants-eye

WFO wfo-0000521105 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Adonis aestivalis, photographed by Patrick Hacker
fig. a Patrick Hacker, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-26 / obs. 201384096

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 43 botanical countries

Regions where Adonis aestivalis is native: Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Afghanistan, Cyprus, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan, Lebanon-Syria, North Caucasus, Palestine, Tadzhikistan, Tibet, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Xinjiang, Nepal, Pakistan, West Himalaya, Austria, Baleares, Belarus, Bulgaria, Corse, East European Russia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Krym, NW. Balkan Pen., Romania, Sardegna, Sicilia, South European Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Türkiye-in-Europe, Ukraine AlgeriaMoroccoTunisiaAfghanistanCyprusIranIraqKazakhstanKirgizstanLebanon-SyriaNorth CaucasusPalestineTadzhikistanTibetTranscaucasusTürkiyeTurkmenistanUzbekistanXinjiangNepalPakistanWest HimalayaAustriaBelarusBulgariaCorseEast European RussiaFranceGermanyGreeceHungaryItalyKrymNW. Balkan Pen.RomaniaSiciliaSouth European RussiaSpainSwitzerlandTürkiye-in-EuropeUkraine BalearesSardegna
Native distribution of Adonis aestivalis, 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. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Austria AUT EUROPE
Baleares BAL
Belarus BLR
Bulgaria BUL
Corse COR
East European Russia RUE
France FRA
Germany GER
Greece GRC
Hungary HUN
Italy ITA
Krym KRY
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Romania ROM
Sardegna SAR
Sicilia SIC
South European Russia RUS
Spain SPA
Switzerland SWI
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE
Ukraine UKR
Afghanistan AFG ASIA-TEMPERATE
Cyprus CYP
Iran IRN
Iraq IRQ
Kazakhstan KAZ
Kirgizstan KGZ
Lebanon-Syria LBS
North Caucasus NCS
Palestine PAL
Tadzhikistan TZK
Tibet CHT
Transcaucasus TCS
Türkiye TUR
Turkmenistan TKM
Uzbekistan UZB
Xinjiang CHX
Algeria ALG AFRICA
Morocco MOR
Tunisia TUN
Nepal NEP ASIA-TROPICAL
Pakistan PAK
West Himalaya WHM

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.

Flowering 177 in flower of 191 examined

Proportion of examined Adonis aestivalis in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 0 0 too few examined
Feb 0 0 too few examined
Mar 2 2 too few examined
Apr 28 29 97% 83% to 99%
May 124 132 94% 89% to 97%
Jun 21 23 91% 73% to 98%
Jul 2 5 40% 12% to 77%
Aug 0 0 too few examined
Sep 0 0 too few examined
Oct 0 0 too few examined
Nov 0 0 too few examined
Dec 0 0 too few examined

Peak flowering in Apr. Each bar is the share of Adonis aestivalis observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 177 of 191 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 8 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Where it actually grows measured, from 1,808 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -10.1 °C -4.1 °C 0.3 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 22.0 °C 25.3 °C 31.5 °C
Annual rainfall 327 mm 580 mm 892 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 37 mm 94 mm 161 mm

It is found where winters bring hard frost. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 1,808 research-grade observations of Adonis aestivalis 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. Climate from CHELSA V2.1 (Karger et al. 2017); occurrences from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 36 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.

  • Adonis aestivalis f. citrina (Hoffm.) Nyár.
  • Adonis aestivalis subsp. aestivalis
  • Adonis aestivalis subsp. marginata C.H.Steinb. ex W.T.Wang
  • Adonis aestivalis subsp. provincialis (DC.) C.H.Steinb.
  • Adonis aestivalis var. aestivalis
  • Adonis aestivalis var. parviflora (Fisch. ex DC.) M.Bieb.
  • Adonis aestivalis var. provincialis (DC.) W.T.Wang
  • Adonis aestivalis var. velutina Lipsky
  • Adonis ambigua Gaudin
  • Adonis ambigua var. flavus Gaudin
  • Adonis annua var. phoenicea L.
  • Adonis autumnalis M.Bieb.
  • Adonis bienertii Butkov ex Riedl
  • Adonis citrina Hoffm.
  • Adonis crinita Hoffm.
  • Adonis cristata Stapf
  • Adonis dentata var. provincialis DC.
  • Adonis flammea Schleich. ex Steud.
  • Adonis flammea var. parviflora (M.Bieb.) Huth
  • Adonis flava Vill.
  • Adonis inermis Stapf
  • Adonis inglisii Royle
  • Adonis linnaei Sennen
  • Adonis maculata Wallr.

and 12 more.

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. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. 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.