Draba incanaL.

twisted draba

WFO wfo-0000655499 Accepted WFO 2026-06 6 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–f · 5 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 5 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.

Draba incana, photographed by pete_gateley
fig. a pete_gateley, CC0 1.0 / 2021-08-14 / obs. 151437168
Draba incana, photographed by Todd Boland
fig. b Todd Boland, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 43978298
Draba incana, photographed by Dmitriy Bochkov
fig. c Dmitriy Bochkov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 57605037
Draba incana, photographed by Dmitriy Bochkov
fig. d Dmitriy Bochkov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 57604849
Draba incana, photographed by Dmitriy Bochkov
fig. e Dmitriy Bochkov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 31652484
Draba incana, photographed by Dmitriy Bochkov
fig. f Dmitriy Bochkov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 31652481

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 25 botanical countries

Regions where Draba incana is native: Baltic States, Denmark, East European Russia, Finland, Føroyar, France, Germany, Great Britain, Iceland, Ireland, North European Russia, Northwest European Russia, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Greenland, Labrador, Manitoba, Michigan, Minnesota, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Ontario, Prince Edward I., Québec Baltic StatesDenmarkEast European RussiaFinlandFranceGermanyIcelandIrelandNorth European RussiaNorthwest European RussiaNorwaySwedenSwitzerlandGreenlandLabradorManitobaMichiganMinnesotaNew BrunswickNewfoundlandOntarioPrince Edward I.Québec Føroyar
Native distribution of Draba incana, 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
Baltic States BLT EUROPE
Denmark DEN
East European Russia RUE
Finland FIN
Føroyar FOR
France FRA
Germany GER
Great Britain GRB
Iceland ICE
Ireland IRE
North European Russia RUN
Northwest European Russia RUW
Norway NOR
Sweden SWE
Switzerland SWI
Greenland GNL NORTHERN AMERICA
Labrador LAB
Manitoba MAN
Michigan MIC
Minnesota MIN
New Brunswick NBR
Newfoundland NFL
Ontario ONT
Prince Edward I. PEI
Québec QUE

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.

Where it actually grows measured, from 94 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -23.2 °C -7.9 °C 0.3 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 9.6 °C 13.1 °C 17.4 °C
Annual rainfall 647 mm 1,263 mm 2,163 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 90 mm 241 mm 375 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 94 research-grade observations of Draba incana 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 20 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.

  • Draba bernensii Moritzi
  • Draba bernensis Moritzi
  • Draba confusa Ehrh.
  • Draba confusa var. paucifolia DC.
  • Draba contorta Ehrh.
  • Draba contorta var. linearifolia DC.
  • Draba glabella Richardson
  • Draba incana f. altera Cham. & Schltdl.
  • Draba incana f. luxurians Berlin
  • Draba incana f. robusta Pohle
  • Draba incana f. tenuis Pohle
  • Draba incana subsp. confusa (Ehrh.) E.Ekman
  • Draba incana subsp. pyrenaea (O.E.Schulz) O.Bolòs & Vigo
  • Draba incana var. confusa (Ehrh.) Lilj.
  • Draba incana var. conica O.E.Schulz
  • Draba incana var. contorta (Ehrh.) Lilj.
  • Draba incana var. incana
  • Draba incana var. linearifolia (DC.) O.E.Schulz
  • Draba ledebourii Rouy & Foucaud
  • Drabella incana (L.) Bubani

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.