Aria edulis(Willd.) M.Roem.

chess-apple

WFO wfo-0000990619 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Aria edulis, photographed by David Sandler
fig. a David Sandler, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-12 / obs. 205713297
Aria edulis, photographed by Jason Grant
fig. b Jason Grant, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205217420
Aria edulis, photographed by John Kenrick Gibson
fig. c John Kenrick Gibson, CC0 1.0 / obs. 205574762
Aria edulis, photographed by Jon Mortin
fig. d Jon Mortin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204957384
Aria edulis, photographed by Marc Riera
fig. e Marc Riera, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203798388
Aria edulis, photographed by Katrin Simon
fig. f Katrin Simon, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204854111
Aria edulis, photographed by Jason Grant
fig. g Jason Grant, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 202770615
Aria edulis, photographed by Jason Grant
fig. h Jason Grant, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 200563198

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 25 botanical countries

Regions where Aria edulis is native: Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Albania, Austria, Baleares, Belgium, Bulgaria, Corse, Czechia-Slovakia, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Italy, NW. Balkan Pen., Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sardegna, Sicilia, Spain, Switzerland AlgeriaMoroccoTunisiaAlbaniaAustriaBelgiumBulgariaCorseCzechia-SlovakiaDenmarkFranceGermanyGreeceHungaryItalyNW. Balkan Pen.PolandPortugalRomaniaSiciliaSpainSwitzerland BalearesSardegna
Native distribution of Aria edulis, 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
Baleares BAL
Belgium BGM
Bulgaria BUL
Corse COR
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
Denmark DEN
France FRA
Germany GER
Great Britain GRB
Greece GRC
Hungary HUN
Italy ITA
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Poland POL
Portugal POR
Romania ROM
Sardegna SAR
Sicilia SIC
Spain SPA
Switzerland SWI
Algeria ALG AFRICA
Morocco MOR
Tunisia TUN

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 51 in flower of 262 examined

Peak flowering in May. Each bar is the share of Aria edulis 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. 51 of 262 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 4 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.

Also published as 154 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.

  • Aria alpina M.Roem.
  • Aria aria (L.) Huth
  • Aria majestica Lavallée
  • Aria nivea Host
  • Aria nivea f. cyclophylla Beck
  • Aria nivea prol. tomentosa (Rouy & E.G.Camus) Bonnier
  • Aria nivea unranked acutifolia (Ser.) Gren.
  • Aria nivea unranked latifolia Gren.
  • Aria nivea var. acutifolia (Ser.) M.Roem.
  • Aria nivea var. angustifolia (Lindl.) M.Roem.
  • Aria nivea var. bullata (Lindl.) M.Roem.
  • Aria nivea var. edulis (Willd.) Koehne
  • Aria nivea var. glabrata (G.Kirchn.) Lavallée
  • Aria nivea var. incisa (Mutel) M.Roem.
  • Aria nivea var. lanata Lavallée
  • Aria nivea var. latifolia Lavallée
  • Aria nivea var. longifolia (Pers.) Gren.
  • Aria nivea var. rugosa (Lindl.) M.Roem.
  • Aria nivea var. undulata (Lindl.) M.Roem.
  • Aria tomentosa (Rouy & E.G.Camus) Bonnier
  • Aria vulgaris Decne.
  • Aronia alpina (M.Roem.) Dippel
  • Aroniaria alpina (M.Roem.) Mezhenskyj
  • Azarolus aria (L.) Borkh.

and 130 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. USDA PLANTS Database. common name, checklist symbol SOAR9. public domain. 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.