Filipendula vulgarisMoench

dropwort

WFO wfo-0000999867 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Filipendula vulgaris, photographed by Aleksei Baushev
fig. a Aleksei Baushev, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-11 / obs. 205250495

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 44 botanical countries

Regions where Filipendula vulgaris is native: Algeria, Azores, Morocco, Altay, Iran, Irkutsk, Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan, North Caucasus, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, Tuva, Albania, Austria, Baltic States, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Central European Russia, Czechia-Slovakia, Denmark, East European Russia, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Krym, Netherlands, Northwest European Russia, Norway, NW. Balkan Pen., Poland, Portugal, Romania, South European Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye-in-Europe, Ukraine AlgeriaMoroccoAltayIranIrkutskKazakhstanKirgizstanNorth CaucasusTranscaucasusTürkiyeTuvaAlbaniaAustriaBaltic StatesBelarusBelgiumBulgariaCentral European RussiaCzechia-SlovakiaDenmarkEast European RussiaFinlandFranceGermanyGreeceHungaryIrelandItalyKrymNetherlandsNorthwest European RussiaNorwayNW. Balkan Pen.PolandPortugalRomaniaSouth European RussiaSpainSwedenSwitzerlandTürkiye-in-EuropeUkraine Azores
Native distribution of Filipendula vulgaris, 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
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
Northwest European Russia RUW
Norway NOR
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Poland POL
Portugal POR
Romania ROM
South European Russia RUS
Spain SPA
Sweden SWE
Switzerland SWI
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE
Ukraine UKR
Altay ALT ASIA-TEMPERATE
Iran IRN
Irkutsk IRK
Kazakhstan KAZ
Kirgizstan KGZ
North Caucasus NCS
Transcaucasus TCS
Türkiye TUR
Tuva TVA
Algeria ALG AFRICA
Azores AZO
Morocco MOR

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 1,888 in flower of 3,280 examined

Proportion of examined Filipendula vulgaris in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 1 43 2% 0% to 12%
Feb 0 38 0% 0% to 9%
Mar 4 83 5% 2% to 12%
Apr 40 489 8% 6% to 11%
May 472 659 72% 68% to 75%
Jun 703 796 88% 86% to 90%
Jul 450 631 71% 68% to 75%
Aug 144 306 47% 42% to 53%
Sep 43 131 33% 25% to 41%
Oct 25 67 37% 27% to 49%
Nov 3 24 13% 4% to 31%
Dec 3 13 23% 8% to 50%

Peak flowering in Jun. Each bar is the share of Filipendula vulgaris 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. 1,888 of 3,280 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 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 1,975 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -18.5 °C -6.4 °C 2.2 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 18.8 °C 23.7 °C 27.1 °C
Annual rainfall 446 mm 642 mm 1,360 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 57 mm 107 mm 216 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 1,975 research-grade observations of Filipendula vulgaris 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 31 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.

  • Filipendula filipendula (L.) Voss
  • Filipendula hexapetala Gilib. ex Maxim.
  • Filipendula hexapetala Gilib.
  • Filipendula hexapetala f. glabra (Ducommun) Gams
  • Filipendula hexapetala f. hevesiensis Degen ex Soó
  • Filipendula hexapetala f. pubescens (Fourr.) Gams
  • Filipendula hexapetala var. pleniflora Bergmans
  • Filipendula pubescens Fourr.
  • Filipendula vulgaris Hill
  • Filipendula vulgaris f. hevesiensis (Degen ex Soó) Soó
  • Spiraea angustifolia Mill.
  • Spiraea dasyantha var. pubescens (Fourr.) Wenz.
  • Spiraea filipendula L.
  • Spiraea filipendula f. apetala Brenner
  • Spiraea filipendula unranked glabra Ducommun
  • Spiraea filipendula var. minor Gouan
  • Spiraea filipendula var. minor Gouan ex Cambess.
  • Spiraea filipendula var. pubescens Cambess.
  • Spiraea filipendula var. vulgaris Cambess.
  • Spiraea filipendulina E.Vilm.
  • Spiraea gigantea Gand.
  • Spiraea noeana Gand.
  • Spiraea pubescens DC.
  • Spiraea tuberosa Salisb.

and 7 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.