Chaerophyllum temulumL.

rough chervil

WFO wfo-0000599113 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Chaerophyllum temulum, photographed by aga_l_
fig. a aga_l_, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-11 / obs. 205213327

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 37 botanical countries

Regions where Chaerophyllum temulum is native: Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, North Caucasus, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, Albania, Austria, Baltic States, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Central European Russia, Corse, Czechia-Slovakia, Denmark, East European Russia, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Krym, Netherlands, North European Russia, NW. Balkan Pen., Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sicilia, South European Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye-in-Europe, Ukraine AlgeriaMoroccoTunisiaNorth CaucasusTranscaucasusTürkiyeAlbaniaAustriaBaltic StatesBelarusBelgiumBulgariaCentral European RussiaCorseCzechia-SlovakiaDenmarkEast European RussiaFranceGermanyGreeceHungaryItalyKrymNetherlandsNorth European RussiaNW. Balkan Pen.PolandPortugalRomaniaSiciliaSouth European RussiaSpainSwedenSwitzerlandTürkiye-in-EuropeUkraine
Native distribution of Chaerophyllum temulum, 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
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
France FRA
Germany GER
Great Britain GRB
Greece GRC
Hungary HUN
Italy ITA
Krym KRY
Netherlands NET
North European Russia RUN
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Poland POL
Portugal POR
Romania ROM
Sicilia SIC
South European Russia RUS
Spain SPA
Sweden SWE
Switzerland SWI
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE
Ukraine UKR
Algeria ALG AFRICA
Morocco MOR
Tunisia TUN
North Caucasus NCS ASIA-TEMPERATE
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 300 in flower of 440 examined

Proportion of examined Chaerophyllum temulum in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 2 5 40% 12% to 77%
Feb 0 9 0% 0% to 30%
Mar 0 16 0% 0% to 19%
Apr 5 29 17% 8% to 35%
May 150 191 79% 72% to 84%
Jun 112 121 93% 86% to 96%
Jul 21 41 51% 36% to 66%
Aug 5 13 38% 18% to 64%
Sep 2 2 too few examined
Oct 2 4 too few examined
Nov 0 2 too few examined
Dec 1 7 14% 3% to 51%

Peak flowering in Jun. Each bar is the share of Chaerophyllum temulum 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. 300 of 440 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 3 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 1,973 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -6.4 °C -1.8 °C 2.6 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 19.6 °C 23.2 °C 26.5 °C
Annual rainfall 540 mm 707 mm 1,339 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 87 mm 130 mm 202 mm

It is found where winters bring hard frost. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 1,973 research-grade observations of Chaerophyllum temulum 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 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.

  • Bellia temulenta Bubani
  • Chaerophyllum aureum L.
  • Chaerophyllum geniculatum Gilib.
  • Chaerophyllum temulentum L.
  • Chaerophyllum temulum f. atropurpureum Simmons
  • Chaerophyllum temulum f. canescens Baen. ex Thell.
  • Chaerophyllum temulum f. eriocarpum Guss.
  • Chaerophyllum temulum var. canescens (Baen. ex Thell.) P.D.Sell
  • Myrrhis temula All.
  • Polgidon temulum (L.) Raf.
  • Scandix nutans Moench
  • Scandix temula (L.) Roth
  • Selinum temulum E.H.L.Krause

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.