Dianthus caryophyllusL.

Clove Pinkcarnationclove pink

WFO wfo-0000643278 Accepted WFO 2026-06 3 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–c · 1 observation

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 1 time, 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.

Dianthus caryophyllus, photographed by Yves Bas
fig. a Yves Bas, CC BY 4.0 / 2004-08-25 / obs. 66692967
Dianthus caryophyllus, photographed by Yves Bas
fig. b Yves Bas, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 66692952
Dianthus caryophyllus, photographed by Yves Bas
fig. c Yves Bas, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 66692931

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
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Accession
K001452540
Filed as
Dianthus caryophyllus L.
Det. by
Merrill, E.D.
Collected
Chung, H.H.
Origin
CN
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

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 3 botanical countries

Regions where Dianthus caryophyllus is native: Albania, Greece, NW. Balkan Pen. AlbaniaGreeceNW. Balkan Pen.
Native distribution of Dianthus caryophyllus, 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
Greece GRC
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG

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.

Also published as 21 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.

  • Caryophyllus tunica Garsault
  • Dianthus acinifolius Schur
  • Dianthus arbuscula Lindl.
  • Dianthus arrectus Dumort.
  • Dianthus binatus Schur
  • Dianthus caryophyllus f. intermedius Pamp.
  • Dianthus caryophyllus subsp. coronarius (L.) Maire
  • Dianthus caryophyllus var. carduinus Ser.
  • Dianthus caryophyllus var. coronarius L.
  • Dianthus caryophyllus var. minor Gray
  • Dianthus caryophyllus var. wakefieldii C.Morren
  • Dianthus coronarius Lam.
  • Dianthus coronarius (L.) Burm.f.
  • Dianthus corsicus Link ex Spreng.
  • Dianthus kayserianus Schur
  • Dianthus longicaulis Costa
  • Dianthus miniatus A.Huet ex Nyman
  • Dianthus moschatus J.F.Gmel.
  • Dianthus multinervis Vis.
  • Silene caryophylla (L.) E.H.L.Krause
  • Tunica caryophyllus (L.) Scop.

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.