Aegonychon purpurocaeruleum(L.) Holub

WFO wfo-0000521556 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Aegonychon purpurocaeruleum, photographed by Jens-Christian Svenning
fig. a Jens-Christian Svenning, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-18 / obs. 198710742
Aegonychon purpurocaeruleum, photographed by Michael Knapp
fig. b Michael Knapp, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 196729686
Aegonychon purpurocaeruleum, photographed by Michael Knapp
fig. c Michael Knapp, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 196729540
Aegonychon purpurocaeruleum, photographed by Elias
fig. d Elias, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 195893307
Aegonychon purpurocaeruleum, photographed by Petr Harant
fig. e Petr Harant, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 196236215
Aegonychon purpurocaeruleum, photographed by Michael Andresek
fig. f Michael Andresek, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 195692656
Aegonychon purpurocaeruleum, photographed by Konstantin Grebennikov
fig. g Konstantin Grebennikov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 196457451
Aegonychon purpurocaeruleum, photographed by David Delon
fig. h David Delon, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 194462215

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 29 botanical countries

Regions where Aegonychon purpurocaeruleum is native: Iran, Lebanon-Syria, North Caucasus, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, Albania, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Central European Russia, Corse, Czechia-Slovakia, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Krym, NW. Balkan Pen., Poland, Romania, Sardegna, Sicilia, Spain, Switzerland, Türkiye-in-Europe, Ukraine IranLebanon-SyriaNorth CaucasusTranscaucasusTürkiyeAlbaniaAustriaBelarusBelgiumBulgariaCentral European RussiaCorseCzechia-SlovakiaFranceGermanyGreeceHungaryItalyKrymNW. Balkan Pen.PolandRomaniaSiciliaSpainSwitzerlandTürkiye-in-EuropeUkraine Sardegna
Native distribution of Aegonychon purpurocaeruleum, 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
Albania ALB EUROPE
Austria AUT
Belarus BLR
Belgium BGM
Bulgaria BUL
Central European Russia RUC
Corse COR
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
France FRA
Germany GER
Great Britain GRB
Greece GRC
Hungary HUN
Italy ITA
Krym KRY
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Poland POL
Romania ROM
Sardegna SAR
Sicilia SIC
Spain SPA
Switzerland SWI
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE
Ukraine UKR
Iran IRN ASIA-TEMPERATE
Lebanon-Syria LBS
North Caucasus NCS
Transcaucasus TCS
Türkiye TUR

Not drawn on the map: Great Britain. We hold no public-domain boundary for this region, so it is listed rather than guessed at.

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 796 in flower of 892 examined

Peak flowering in May. Each bar is the share of Aegonychon purpurocaeruleum 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. 796 of 892 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 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.

Also published as 13 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.

  • Aegonychon repens Gray
  • Buglossoides purpurocaerulea (L.) I.M.Johnst.
  • Lithospermum caeruleum Gueldenst.
  • Lithospermum longiflorum Salisb.
  • Lithospermum lucanum Terrac.
  • Lithospermum pumilum Lehm.
  • Lithospermum purpurascens Gueldenst.
  • Lithospermum purpureum Gueldenst.
  • Lithospermum purpurocaeruleum L.
  • Lithospermum violaceum Lam.
  • Margarospermum purpureocoeruleum (L.) Opiz
  • Margarospermum purpurocaeruleum (L.) Fourr.
  • Rhytispermum purpurocaeruleum (L.) Link

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.