Alnus glutinosa(L.) Gaertn.

common alder

WFO wfo-0000945215 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Alnus glutinosa, photographed by Zeke Marshall
fig. a Zeke Marshall, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-13 / obs. 205814753
Alnus glutinosa, photographed by Lucian Vazquez
fig. b Lucian Vazquez, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205838873
Alnus glutinosa, photographed by Yann Kemper
fig. c Yann Kemper, CC0 1.0 / obs. 203948687
Alnus glutinosa, photographed by Lena Perova
fig. d Lena Perova, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203561784
Alnus glutinosa, photographed by Naturalista
fig. e Naturalista, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204598806
Alnus glutinosa, photographed by Matthew Vosper
fig. f Matthew Vosper, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203790881
Alnus glutinosa, photographed by snaily_naily
fig. g snaily_naily, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203465333
Alnus glutinosa, photographed by Matthew Vosper
fig. h Matthew Vosper, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203792563

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.

Confused withby our own model

These are not lookalikes we guessed at. Each one is a species our identification model genuinely mistook for this plant, and how many times. The error rate is published.

Flowering n = 489 observations

Peak flowering in Mar, from 489 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 113 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.

  • Alnus aurea Verschaff.
  • Alnus aurea hort. ex K.Koch
  • Alnus barbata C.A.Mey.
  • Alnus cerifera Hartig ex Regel
  • Alnus denticulata C.A.Mey.
  • Alnus dubia Req. ex Regel
  • Alnus emarginata Krock.
  • Alnus emarginata Krock. ex Steud.
  • Alnus februaria Kuntze
  • Alnus februaria var. incisa (Willd.) Kuntze
  • Alnus februaria var. maculata Kuntze
  • Alnus februaria var. oxyacanthifolia (Lodd.) Kuntze
  • Alnus februaria var. parvifolia Kuntze
  • Alnus februaria var. pinnatifida (Spach) Kuntze
  • Alnus februaria var. quercifolia (Willd.) Kuntze
  • Alnus februaria var. sardoa Kuntze
  • Alnus glutinosa f. aurea (Verschaff.) H.J.P.Winkl.
  • Alnus glutinosa f. aurea Verschaff. ex Dippel
  • Alnus glutinosa f. balatonialis Borbás ex Callier
  • Alnus glutinosa f. barbata (C.A.Mey.) Callier
  • Alnus glutinosa f. bosniaca (Beck) Callier
  • Alnus glutinosa f. cuneata Callier
  • Alnus glutinosa f. dubia Callier
  • Alnus glutinosa f. glabra Brenner

and 89 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.

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