Arctium tomentosumMill.

woolly burdock

WFO wfo-0000130944 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Arctium tomentosum, photographed by Марина Садыкова
fig. a Марина Садыкова, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-12 / obs. 205699146
Arctium tomentosum, photographed by Yurii Basov
fig. b Yurii Basov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204442503
Arctium tomentosum, photographed by Светлана Царахова
fig. c Светлана Царахова, CC0 1.0 / obs. 203381471
Arctium tomentosum, photographed by Yurii Basov
fig. d Yurii Basov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 201470871
Arctium tomentosum, photographed by Виктория Билоус
fig. e Виктория Билоус, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 198064429
Arctium tomentosum, photographed by Екатерина Гущина
fig. f Екатерина Гущина, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 198127145
Arctium tomentosum, photographed by Алексей Ябс
fig. g Алексей Ябс, CC0 1.0 / obs. 197213614
Arctium tomentosum, photographed by Yurii Basov
fig. h Yurii Basov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 197249511

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 42 botanical countries

Regions where Arctium tomentosum is native: Altay, Irkutsk, Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan, Krasnoyarsk, Mongolia, North Caucasus, Tadzhikistan, Transcaucasus, Tuva, Uzbekistan, West Siberia, Xinjiang, Yakutiya, Austria, Baltic States, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Central European Russia, Czechia-Slovakia, Denmark, East European Russia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Krym, Netherlands, North European Russia, Northwest European Russia, Norway, NW. Balkan Pen., Poland, Romania, South European Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine AltayIrkutskKazakhstanKirgizstanKrasnoyarskMongoliaNorth CaucasusTadzhikistanTranscaucasusTuvaUzbekistanWest SiberiaXinjiangYakutiyaAustriaBaltic StatesBelarusBelgiumBulgariaCentral European RussiaCzechia-SlovakiaDenmarkEast European RussiaFinlandFranceGermanyGreeceHungaryItalyKrymNetherlandsNorth European RussiaNorthwest European RussiaNorwayNW. Balkan Pen.PolandRomaniaSouth European RussiaSpainSwedenSwitzerlandUkraine
Native distribution of Arctium tomentosum, 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
Austria AUT EUROPE
Baltic States BLT
Belarus BLR
Belgium BGM
Bulgaria BUL
Central European Russia RUC
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
Denmark DEN
East European Russia RUE
Finland FIN
France FRA
Germany GER
Greece GRC
Hungary HUN
Italy ITA
Krym KRY
Netherlands NET
North European Russia RUN
Northwest European Russia RUW
Norway NOR
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Poland POL
Romania ROM
South European Russia RUS
Spain SPA
Sweden SWE
Switzerland SWI
Ukraine UKR
Altay ALT ASIA-TEMPERATE
Irkutsk IRK
Kazakhstan KAZ
Kirgizstan KGZ
Krasnoyarsk KRA
Mongolia MON
North Caucasus NCS
Tadzhikistan TZK
Transcaucasus TCS
Tuva TVA
Uzbekistan UZB
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.

Flowering 648 in flower of 1,082 examined

Peak flowering in Aug. Each bar is the share of Arctium tomentosum 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. 648 of 1,082 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.

Where it actually grows measured, from 1,926 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -21.7 °C -10.9 °C -2.2 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 20.0 °C 23.0 °C 25.6 °C
Annual rainfall 440 mm 644 mm 918 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 47 mm 104 mm 161 mm

It is found where winters are severely cold. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 1,926 research-grade observations of Arctium tomentosum 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 5 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.

  • Arctium lappa var. tomentosum (Mill.) A.Gray
  • Arctium leptophyllum Klokov
  • Arctium leptophyllum subsp. leptophyllum
  • Arctium tomentosum subsp. tomentosum
  • Lappa tomentosa (Mill.) Lam.

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.