Bidens tripartitaL.

Trifid Bur-marigoldthree-lobe beggarticksthreelobe beggartickstrifid bur-marigold

WFO wfo-0000068428 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Bidens tripartita, photographed by Силаева Татьяна Борисовна
fig. a Силаева Татьяна Борисовна, CC0 1.0 / 2021-08-29 / obs. 153935286

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.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
Smithsonian, US National Herbarium
Accession
US 2507179
Filed as
Bidens tripartita L.
Det. by
Tadesse, M.
Collected
C.E.O. Kuntze 1864-07
Origin
DE
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC0 1.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 132 botanical countries

Regions where Bidens tripartita is native: Algeria, Afghanistan, Altay, Amur, Buryatiya, China North-Central, China South-Central, China Southeast, East Aegean Is., Inner Mongolia, Iran, Iraq, Irkutsk, Japan, Kazakhstan, Khabarovsk, Kirgizstan, Korea, Krasnoyarsk, Lebanon-Syria, Manchuria, Mongolia, Nansei-shoto, North Caucasus, Palestine, Primorye, Qinghai, Tadzhikistan, Taiwan, Tibet, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, Turkmenistan, Tuva, Uzbekistan, West Siberia, Xinjiang, Yakutiya, Assam, East Himalaya, Jawa, Nepal, New Guinea, Pakistan, Philippines, Vietnam, West Himalaya, Albania, Austria, Baltic States, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Central European Russia, Corse, Czechia-Slovakia, Denmark, East European Russia, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Krym, Netherlands, North European Russia, Northwest European Russia, Norway, NW. Balkan Pen., Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sardegna, Sicilia, South European Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye-in-Europe, Ukraine, Alabama, Alaska, Alberta, British Columbia, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Manitoba, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Québec, Rhode I., South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming AlgeriaAfghanistanAltayAmurBuryatiyaChina North-CentralChina South-CentralChina SoutheastEast Aegean Is.Inner MongoliaIranIraqIrkutskJapanKazakhstanKhabarovskKirgizstanKrasnoyarskLebanon-SyriaManchuriaMongoliaNorth CaucasusPalestinePrimoryeQinghaiTadzhikistanTaiwanTibetTranscaucasusTürkiyeTurkmenistanTuvaUzbekistanWest SiberiaXinjiangYakutiyaAssamEast HimalayaJawaNepalNew GuineaPakistanPhilippinesVietnamWest HimalayaAlbaniaAustriaBaltic StatesBelarusBelgiumBulgariaCentral European RussiaCorseCzechia-SlovakiaDenmarkEast European RussiaFinlandFranceGermanyGreeceHungaryIrelandItalyKrymNetherlandsNorth European RussiaNorthwest European RussiaNorwayNW. Balkan Pen.PolandPortugalRomaniaSiciliaSouth European RussiaSpainSwedenSwitzerlandTürkiye-in-EuropeUkraineAlabamaAlaskaAlbertaBritish ColumbiaCaliforniaColoradoConnecticutGeorgiaIllinoisIndianaIowaKansasKentuckyLouisianaMaineManitobaMarylandMassachusettsMichiganMinnesotaMississippiMissouriMontanaNebraskaNew HampshireNew JerseyNew MexicoNew YorkNorth CarolinaNorth DakotaOhioOklahomaOregonPennsylvaniaQuébecSouth CarolinaSouth DakotaTennesseeTexasUtahVermontVirginiaWashingtonWest VirginiaWisconsinWyoming KoreaNansei-shotoSardegnaDelawareDistrict of ColumbiaRhode I.
Native distribution of Bidens tripartita, 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
Alabama ALA NORTHERN AMERICA
Alaska ASK
Alberta ABT
British Columbia BRC
California CAL
Colorado COL
Connecticut CNT
Delaware DEL
District of Columbia WDC
Georgia GEO
Illinois ILL
Indiana INI
Iowa IOW
Kansas KAN
Kentucky KTY
Louisiana LOU
Maine MAI
Manitoba MAN
Maryland MRY
Massachusetts MAS
Michigan MIC
Minnesota MIN
Mississippi MSI
Missouri MSO
Montana MNT
Nebraska NEB
New Hampshire NWH
New Jersey NWJ
New Mexico NWM
New York NWY
North Carolina NCA
North Dakota NDA
Ohio OHI
Oklahoma OKL
Oregon ORE
Pennsylvania PEN
Québec QUE
Rhode I. RHO
South Carolina SCA
South Dakota SDA
Tennessee TEN
Texas TEX
Utah UTA
Vermont VER
Virginia VRG
Washington WAS
West Virginia WVA
Wisconsin WIS
Wyoming WYO
Afghanistan AFG ASIA-TEMPERATE
Altay ALT
Amur AMU
Buryatiya BRY
China North-Central CHN
China South-Central CHC
China Southeast CHS
East Aegean Is. EAI
Inner Mongolia CHI
Iran IRN
Iraq IRQ
Irkutsk IRK
Japan JAP
Kazakhstan KAZ
Khabarovsk KHA
Kirgizstan KGZ
Korea KOR
Krasnoyarsk KRA
Lebanon-Syria LBS
Manchuria CHM
Mongolia MON
Nansei-shoto NNS
North Caucasus NCS
Palestine PAL
Primorye PRM
Qinghai CHQ
Tadzhikistan TZK
Taiwan TAI
Tibet CHT
Transcaucasus TCS
Türkiye TUR
Turkmenistan TKM
Tuva TVA
Uzbekistan UZB
West Siberia WSB
Xinjiang CHX
Yakutiya YAK
Albania ALB EUROPE
Austria AUT
Baltic States BLT
Belarus BLR
Belgium BGM
Bulgaria BUL
Central European Russia RUC
Corse COR
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
Denmark DEN
East European Russia RUE
Finland FIN
France FRA
Germany GER
Great Britain GRB
Greece GRC
Hungary HUN
Ireland IRE
Italy ITA
Krym KRY
Netherlands NET
North European Russia RUN
Northwest European Russia RUW
Norway NOR
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Poland POL
Portugal POR
Romania ROM
Sardegna SAR
Sicilia SIC
South European Russia RUS
Spain SPA
Sweden SWE
Switzerland SWI
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE
Ukraine UKR
Assam ASS ASIA-TROPICAL
East Himalaya EHM
Jawa JAW
Nepal NEP
New Guinea NWG
Pakistan PAK
Philippines PHI
Vietnam VIE
West Himalaya WHM
Algeria ALG AFRICA

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 152 in flower of 208 examined

Proportion of examined Bidens tripartita 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 3 too few examined
Apr 0 1 too few examined
May 0 1 too few examined
Jun 0 2 too few examined
Jul 16 26 62% 43% to 78%
Aug 74 88 84% 75% to 90%
Sep 50 70 71% 60% to 81%
Oct 10 17 59% 36% to 78%
Nov 0 0 too few examined
Dec 0 0 too few examined

Peak flowering in Aug. Each bar is the share of Bidens tripartita 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. 152 of 208 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 1,982 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -21.6 °C -10.9 °C 1.2 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 20.2 °C 23.1 °C 27.1 °C
Annual rainfall 402 mm 654 mm 932 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 40 mm 104 mm 172 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 1,982 research-grade observations of Bidens tripartita 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 21 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.

  • Bidens acuta Britton
  • Bidens bullata L.
  • Bidens bullata var. bullata
  • Bidens hirtus Godr.
  • Bidens minor (Wimm. & Grabowski) Vorosch.
  • Bidens orientalis Velen.
  • Bidens pumila Steud.
  • Bidens repens D.Don
  • Bidens shimadai Hayata
  • Bidens trifida Roxb.
  • Bidens trifoliata Gueldenst. ex Ledeb.
  • Bidens tripartita f. anomala (Farw.) B.Boivin
  • Bidens tripartita f. integra (Peterm.) Koch ex Beck
  • Bidens tripartita f. limosa Kom.
  • Bidens tripartita f. minima (Lej.) Larss.
  • Bidens tripartita f. orthodoxa (Fernald & H.St.John) B.Boivin
  • Bidens tripartita f. pumila (Retz.) Roth ex Beck
  • Bidens tripartita f. stolonifera Bolzon
  • Bidens tripartita f. tripartita
  • Bidens tripartita var. cernuifolia Sherff
  • Bidens tripartita var. shimadai (Hayata) Yamam.

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.