Erigeron pulchellusMichx.

robin's plantain

WFO wfo-0000009039 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Erigeron pulchellus, photographed by Nick Kleinschmidt
fig. a Nick Kleinschmidt, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-05 / obs. 205442036
Erigeron pulchellus, photographed by Tom Scavo
fig. b Tom Scavo, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204758887
Erigeron pulchellus, photographed by Micki Colbeck
fig. c Micki Colbeck, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 202152178
Erigeron pulchellus, photographed by Josh
fig. d Josh, CC0 1.0 / obs. 204000825
Erigeron pulchellus, photographed by Cory
fig. e Cory, CC0 1.0 / obs. 198972660
Erigeron pulchellus, photographed by Mark Apgar
fig. f Mark Apgar, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 197668681
Erigeron pulchellus, photographed by Alison Northup
fig. g Alison Northup, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 194994227
Erigeron pulchellus, photographed by Rochelle Davis
fig. h Rochelle Davis, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 194566074

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
The New York Botanical Garden
Accession
2093755
Filed as
Erigeron pulchellus Michx.
Det. by
D. E. Atha 2015-01-01
Collected
G. V. Nash 1899-05-25
Origin
US
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 37 botanical countries

Regions where Erigeron pulchellus is native: India, Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Ontario, Pennsylvania, Québec, Rhode I., South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin IndiaAlabamaArkansasConnecticutFloridaGeorgiaIllinoisIndianaIowaKansasKentuckyLouisianaMaineMarylandMassachusettsMichiganMinnesotaMississippiMissouriNew HampshireNew JerseyNew YorkNorth CarolinaOhioOklahomaOntarioPennsylvaniaQuébecSouth CarolinaTennesseeTexasVermontVirginiaWest VirginiaWisconsin DelawareRhode I.
Native distribution of Erigeron pulchellus, 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
Alabama ALA NORTHERN AMERICA
Arkansas ARK
Connecticut CNT
Delaware DEL
Florida FLA
Georgia GEO
Illinois ILL
Indiana INI
Iowa IOW
Kansas KAN
Kentucky KTY
Louisiana LOU
Maine MAI
Maryland MRY
Massachusetts MAS
Michigan MIC
Minnesota MIN
Mississippi MSI
Missouri MSO
New Hampshire NWH
New Jersey NWJ
New York NWY
North Carolina NCA
Ohio OHI
Oklahoma OKL
Ontario ONT
Pennsylvania PEN
Québec QUE
Rhode I. RHO
South Carolina SCA
Tennessee TEN
Texas TEX
Vermont VER
Virginia VRG
West Virginia WVA
Wisconsin WIS
India IND ASIA-TROPICAL

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 2,118 in flower of 2,258 examined

Peak flowering in Jun. Each bar is the share of Erigeron pulchellus 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. 2,118 of 2,258 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 4 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 2,013 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -13.1 °C -4.7 °C 0.4 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 24.1 °C 27.6 °C 31.4 °C
Annual rainfall 900 mm 1,220 mm 1,750 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 110 mm 255 mm 381 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 2,013 research-grade observations of Erigeron pulchellus 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 34 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.

  • Aster alwartensis Lodd. ex Sims.
  • Aster rupestris E.H.L.Krause
  • Diplopappus bellidioides Gillies & Don ex Hook. & Arn.
  • Erigeron acris C.B.Clarke
  • Erigeron alpestris Hoppe ex Nyman
  • Erigeron alpinus Pursh
  • Erigeron alpinus Less.
  • Erigeron alpinus var. wightii (DC.) Hook.f.
  • Erigeron apenninianus Georgi
  • Erigeron asteroides Hoppe ex Nyman
  • Erigeron bellidifolius var. scariosus DC.
  • Erigeron bithynicus Vierh.
  • Erigeron frigidus Boiss. & Buhse ex Boiss.
  • Erigeron funkii Sch.Bip. ex Nyman
  • Erigeron glaber Hoppe ex Nyman
  • Erigeron glabratus Endr. ex Willk. & Lange
  • Erigeron glacialis Fisch. ex Herder
  • Erigeron grandiflorus Willd. ex Spreng.
  • Erigeron grandiflorus Hoppe ex DC.
  • Erigeron leschenaultii DC.
  • Erigeron monocephalus Schur
  • Erigeron patentisquama Jeffrey
  • Erigeron pulchellus Turcz.
  • Erigeron pulchellus f. pulchellus

and 10 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.