Cotoneaster tomentosus(Aiton) Lindl.

WFO wfo-0001011343 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 6 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 6 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.

Cotoneaster tomentosus, photographed by Irene Saltini
fig. a Irene Saltini, CC0 1.0 / 2019-07-19 / obs. 45410942
Cotoneaster tomentosus, photographed by Jason Grant
fig. b Jason Grant, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 19422208
Cotoneaster tomentosus, photographed by Irene Saltini
fig. c Irene Saltini, CC0 1.0 / obs. 45410957
Cotoneaster tomentosus, photographed by Tobias Schönberg
fig. d Tobias Schönberg, CC0 1.0 / obs. 195581703
Cotoneaster tomentosus, photographed by Daniel Linzbauer
fig. e Daniel Linzbauer, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 156670699
Cotoneaster tomentosus, photographed by Mirko Ubović
fig. f Mirko Ubović, CC0 1.0 / obs. 177589915
Cotoneaster tomentosus, photographed by aroche
fig. g aroche, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 132632104
Cotoneaster tomentosus, photographed by Daniel Linzbauer
fig. h Daniel Linzbauer, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 156670730

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 18 botanical countries

Regions where Cotoneaster tomentosus is native: East Aegean Is., North Caucasus, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, Albania, Austria, Bulgaria, Czechia-Slovakia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, NW. Balkan Pen., Poland, Romania, Spain, Switzerland East Aegean Is.North CaucasusTranscaucasusTürkiyeAlbaniaAustriaBulgariaCzechia-SlovakiaFranceGermanyGreeceHungaryItalyNW. Balkan Pen.PolandRomaniaSpainSwitzerland
Native distribution of Cotoneaster tomentosus, 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
Hungary HUN
Italy ITA
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Poland POL
Romania ROM
Spain SPA
Switzerland SWI
East Aegean Is. EAI ASIA-TEMPERATE
North Caucasus NCS
Transcaucasus TCS
Türkiye TUR

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 203 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -10.1 °C -6.3 °C -2.8 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 18.1 °C 22.2 °C 25.3 °C
Annual rainfall 699 mm 1,279 mm 2,144 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 110 mm 209 mm 373 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 203 research-grade observations of Cotoneaster tomentosus 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 18 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.

  • Cotoneaster coccineus (Roth) Steud.
  • Cotoneaster integerrimus var. tomentosus (Aiton) Fiori
  • Cotoneaster orientalis (Mill.) Borbás
  • Cotoneaster soczavianus Pojark.
  • Cotoneaster tomentosus var. eriocarpus Lam. & DC. ex Mutel
  • Cotoneaster tomentosus var. floribundus Chabert
  • Cotoneaster vulgaris subsp. tomentosus (Aiton) Bonnier & Layens
  • Cotoneaster vulgaris var. tomentosus (Aiton) Vis.
  • Gymnopyrenium tomentosum (Aiton) Dulac
  • Mespilus coccinea Waldst. & Kit.
  • Mespilus cotoneaster var. eriocarpa Wahlenb.
  • Mespilus eriocarpa DC.
  • Mespilus orientalis Mill.
  • Mespilus pygmaea Baumg.
  • Mespilus tomentosa Aiton
  • Mespilus tomentosa var. coccinea Roth
  • Pyrus chelseana M.F.Fay & Christenh.
  • Pyrus soczaviana (Pojark.) M.F.Fay & Christenh.

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.