Chamaemespilus alpina(Mill.) K.R.Robertson & J.B.Phipps

WFO wfo-0000989653 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Chamaemespilus alpina, photographed by Katrin Simon
fig. a Katrin Simon, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-04 / obs. 204220723
Chamaemespilus alpina, photographed by Jason Grant
fig. b Jason Grant, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 202770827
Chamaemespilus alpina, photographed by Irene Saltini
fig. c Irene Saltini, CC0 1.0 / obs. 152160241
Chamaemespilus alpina, photographed by agujaceratops
fig. d agujaceratops, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 141149583
Chamaemespilus alpina, photographed by Jason Grant
fig. e Jason Grant, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 138339499
Chamaemespilus alpina, photographed by Jason Grant
fig. f Jason Grant, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 136776227
Chamaemespilus alpina, photographed by Christian Berg
fig. g Christian Berg, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 78984528
Chamaemespilus alpina, photographed by Fabien Anthelme
fig. h Fabien Anthelme, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 65788093

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 682753
Filed as
Chamaemespilus alpina (Mill.) K.R.Robertson & J.B.Phipps
Det. by
Strong, Mark T., (BOT), Smithsonian Institution - National Museum of Natural History (UNITED STATES)
Collected
J. Ball 1881-07
Origin
CH
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 13 botanical countries

Regions where Chamaemespilus alpina is native: Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Czechia-Slovakia, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, NW. Balkan Pen., Poland, Romania, Spain, Switzerland AlbaniaAustriaBulgariaCzechia-SlovakiaFranceGermanyGreeceItalyNW. Balkan Pen.PolandRomaniaSpainSwitzerland
Native distribution of Chamaemespilus alpina, 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
Bulgaria BUL
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
France FRA
Germany GER
Greece GRC
Italy ITA
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Poland POL
Romania ROM
Spain SPA
Switzerland SWI

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.

Where it actually grows measured, from 708 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -15.5 °C -11.6 °C -7.1 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 14.3 °C 16.5 °C 19.9 °C
Annual rainfall 1,139 mm 1,779 mm 2,629 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 144 mm 315 mm 510 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 708 research-grade observations of Chamaemespilus alpina 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.

Also published as 48 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 chamaemespilus (L.) Host
  • Aria chamaemespilus var. bicolor Lavallée
  • Aria crantzii Beck
  • Aronia ariachamaemespilus Rchb.
  • Aronia chamaemespilus (L.) Pers.
  • Azarolus alpina (Mill.) Borkh.
  • Azarolus chamaemespilus (L.) Borkh.
  • Chamaemespilus humilis M.Roem.
  • Crataegus alpina Mill.
  • Crataegus alpinus Mill.
  • Crataegus chamaemespilus (L.) Jacq.
  • Crataegus chamaemespilus unranked discolor Ser.
  • Crataegus humilis Lam.
  • Crataegus sorbifolia Desf.
  • Hahnia chamaemespilus (L.) Medik.
  • Lazarolus chamaemespilus (L.) Borkh.
  • Mespilus chamaemespilus L.
  • Prunus chamaemespilus (L.) Sm.
  • Pyrenia chamaemespylus (L.) Clairv.
  • Pyrus alpina (Mill.) Du Roi
  • Pyrus chamaemespilus (L.) Ehrh.
  • Pyrus chamaemespilus prol. typica Asch. & Graebn.
  • Pyrus chamaemespilus subvar. crantzii (Beck) Asch. & Graebn.
  • Pyrus chamaemespilus var. discolor (Hegetschw.) Asch. & Graebn.

and 24 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. 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.