Cistus tauricusC.Presl

WFO wfo-0000607627 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Cistus tauricus, photographed by Алексей Ябс
fig. a Алексей Ябс, CC0 1.0 / 2021-07-19 / obs. 144640985
Cistus tauricus, photographed by Михаил Орлов
fig. b Михаил Орлов, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 109387625
Cistus tauricus, photographed by Михаил Орлов
fig. c Михаил Орлов, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 109387787
Cistus tauricus, photographed by Михаил Орлов
fig. d Михаил Орлов, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 109387635
Cistus tauricus, photographed by Михаил Орлов
fig. e Михаил Орлов, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 109387629
Cistus tauricus, photographed by Михаил Орлов
fig. f Михаил Орлов, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 75197133
Cistus tauricus, photographed by Михаил Орлов
fig. g Михаил Орлов, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 74504527
Cistus tauricus, photographed by Vitaliy Rudenko
fig. h Vitaliy Rudenko, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 32339314

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 132431
Filed as
Cistus eriocephalus Viv.
Det. by
not recorded on this sheet
Collected
P. Mabille 1867-05-05
Origin
FR
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 22 botanical countries

Regions where Cistus tauricus is native: Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, Cyprus, East Aegean Is., Lebanon-Syria, North Caucasus, Palestine, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, Albania, Bulgaria, Corse, Greece, Italy, Kriti, Krym, NW. Balkan Pen., Portugal, Sardegna, Türkiye-in-Europe AlgeriaLibyaMoroccoTunisiaCyprusEast Aegean Is.Lebanon-SyriaNorth CaucasusPalestineTranscaucasusTürkiyeAlbaniaBulgariaCorseGreeceItalyKritiKrymNW. Balkan Pen.PortugalTürkiye-in-Europe Sardegna
Native distribution of Cistus tauricus, 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
Bulgaria BUL
Corse COR
Greece GRC
Italy ITA
Kriti KRI
Krym KRY
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Portugal POR
Sardegna SAR
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE
Cyprus CYP ASIA-TEMPERATE
East Aegean Is. EAI
Lebanon-Syria LBS
North Caucasus NCS
Palestine PAL
Transcaucasus TCS
Türkiye TUR
Algeria ALG AFRICA
Libya LBY
Morocco MOR
Tunisia TUN

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 235 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -1.5 °C 0.1 °C 1.1 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 23.8 °C 25.4 °C 26.4 °C
Annual rainfall 735 mm 842 mm 948 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 143 mm 162 mm 186 mm

It is found where winters bring light 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 235 research-grade observations of Cistus tauricus 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 14 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.

  • Cistus creticus subsp. eriocephalus (Viv.) Greuter & Burdet
  • Cistus creticus var. eriocephalus (Viv.) Greuter
  • Cistus creticus var. tauricus (C.Presl) Dunal
  • Cistus eriocephalus Viv.
  • Cistus macrocalyx Sennen & Pau
  • Cistus paui Sennen
  • Cistus polymorphus subsp. incanus Willk.
  • Cistus ponticus Juz.
  • Cistus riphienensis Pau
  • Cistus sennenianus Pau
  • Cistus villosus subsp. incanus P.Fourn.
  • Cistus villosus var. eriocephalus (Viv.) Grosser
  • Cistus villosus var. mauritanicus Grosser
  • Cistus villosus var. tauricus (C.Presl) Grosser

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.