Clinopodium acinos(L.) Kuntze

basil thyme

WFO wfo-0000890516 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Clinopodium acinos, photographed by Aleksei Baushev
fig. a Aleksei Baushev, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-11 / obs. 205247698

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 43 botanical countries

Regions where Clinopodium acinos is native: Altay, East Aegean Is., Iran, Krasnoyarsk, North Caucasus, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, West Siberia, 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, Romania, Sardegna, Sicilia, South European Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye-in-Europe, Ukraine AltayEast Aegean Is.IranKrasnoyarskNorth CaucasusTranscaucasusTürkiyeWest SiberiaAlbaniaAustriaBaltic StatesBelarusBelgiumBulgariaCentral European RussiaCorseCzechia-SlovakiaDenmarkEast European RussiaFinlandFranceGermanyGreeceHungaryIrelandItalyKrymNetherlandsNorth European RussiaNorthwest European RussiaNorwayNW. Balkan Pen.PolandRomaniaSiciliaSouth European RussiaSpainSwedenSwitzerlandTürkiye-in-EuropeUkraine Sardegna
Native distribution of Clinopodium acinos, 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
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
Romania ROM
Sardegna SAR
Sicilia SIC
South European Russia RUS
Spain SPA
Sweden SWE
Switzerland SWI
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE
Ukraine UKR
Altay ALT ASIA-TEMPERATE
East Aegean Is. EAI
Iran IRN
Krasnoyarsk KRA
North Caucasus NCS
Transcaucasus TCS
Türkiye TUR
West Siberia WSB

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 333 in flower of 343 examined

Proportion of examined Clinopodium acinos in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 1 2 too few examined
Feb 1 1 too few examined
Mar 3 4 too few examined
Apr 3 4 too few examined
May 37 38 97% 87% to 100%
Jun 138 138 100% 97% to 100%
Jul 69 72 96% 88% to 99%
Aug 38 38 100% 91% to 100%
Sep 20 20 100% 84% to 100%
Oct 13 13 100% 77% to 100%
Nov 4 4 too few examined
Dec 6 9 67% 35% to 88%

Peak flowering in Jun. Each bar is the share of Clinopodium acinos 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. 333 of 343 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 5 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 1,903 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -13.9 °C -6.1 °C 0.8 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 19.1 °C 23.4 °C 26.5 °C
Annual rainfall 531 mm 706 mm 1,344 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 84 mm 121 mm 236 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 1,903 research-grade observations of Clinopodium acinos 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 59 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.

  • Acinos acinos (L.) Huth
  • Acinos acuminatus Friv.
  • Acinos arvensis (Lam.) Dandy
  • Acinos arvensis subsp. eglandulosus (Klokov) Tzvelev
  • Acinos arvensis subsp. villosus (Pers.) Soják
  • Acinos arvensis var. acuminatus (Friv.) Šilic
  • Acinos arvensis var. argutus (Rchb.) Šilic
  • Acinos arvensis var. lancifolius (Murb.) Šilic
  • Acinos arvensis var. perennans (Vis.) Šilic
  • Acinos arvensis var. villosus (Pers.) Šilic
  • Acinos clinopodiifacie Gilib.
  • Acinos eglandulosus Klokov
  • Acinos infectus Klokov
  • Acinos schizodontus Klokov
  • Acinos subcrispus Klokov
  • Acinos thymoides Moench
  • Acinos thymoides var. perennans Vis.
  • Acinos thymoides var. villosus (Pers.) Vis.
  • Acinos villosus Pers.
  • Acinos villosus var. argutus Rchb.
  • Acinos vulgaris var. villosus (Pers.) Boenn.
  • Calamintha acinos (L.) Clairv.
  • Calamintha acinos f. lancifolia (Murb.) Bolzon
  • Calamintha acinos f. villosa (Pers.) Bolzon

and 35 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. 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.