Genista tinctoriaL.

Dyer's GreenweedDyer's greenweed

WFO wfo-0000213769 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Genista tinctoria, photographed by thomas_oswald
fig. a thomas_oswald, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-10 / obs. 205549387

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 38 botanical countries

Regions where Genista tinctoria is native: Afghanistan, Altay, Iran, Kazakhstan, Lebanon-Syria, North Caucasus, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, West Siberia, Albania, Austria, Baltic States, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Central European Russia, Czechia-Slovakia, Denmark, East European Russia, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Krym, Netherlands, Northwest European Russia, Norway, NW. Balkan Pen., Poland, Romania, South European Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye-in-Europe, Ukraine AfghanistanAltayIranKazakhstanLebanon-SyriaNorth CaucasusTranscaucasusTürkiyeWest SiberiaAlbaniaAustriaBaltic StatesBelarusBelgiumBulgariaCentral European RussiaCzechia-SlovakiaDenmarkEast European RussiaFranceGermanyGreeceHungaryItalyKrymNetherlandsNorthwest European RussiaNorwayNW. Balkan Pen.PolandRomaniaSouth European RussiaSpainSwedenSwitzerlandTürkiye-in-EuropeUkraine
Native distribution of Genista tinctoria, 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
Baltic States BLT
Belarus BLR
Belgium BGM
Bulgaria BUL
Central European Russia RUC
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
Denmark DEN
East European Russia RUE
France FRA
Germany GER
Great Britain GRB
Greece GRC
Hungary HUN
Italy ITA
Krym KRY
Netherlands NET
Northwest European Russia RUW
Norway NOR
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Poland POL
Romania ROM
South European Russia RUS
Spain SPA
Sweden SWE
Switzerland SWI
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE
Ukraine UKR
Afghanistan AFG ASIA-TEMPERATE
Altay ALT
Iran IRN
Kazakhstan KAZ
Lebanon-Syria LBS
North Caucasus NCS
Transcaucasus TCS
Türkiye TUR
West Siberia WSB

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 511 in flower of 582 examined

Proportion of examined Genista tinctoria in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 0 0 too few examined
Feb 0 0 too few examined
Mar 0 0 too few examined
Apr 2 7 29% 8% to 64%
May 47 52 90% 79% to 96%
Jun 241 262 92% 88% to 95%
Jul 148 153 97% 93% to 99%
Aug 49 70 70% 58% to 79%
Sep 16 25 64% 45% to 80%
Oct 6 9 67% 35% to 88%
Nov 2 4 too few examined
Dec 0 0 too few examined

Peak flowering in Jul. Each bar is the share of Genista tinctoria 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. 511 of 582 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 5 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 2,007 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -16.9 °C -8.4 °C 1.4 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 20.0 °C 23.7 °C 26.4 °C
Annual rainfall 490 mm 631 mm 1,317 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 70 mm 109 mm 238 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 2,007 research-grade observations of Genista tinctoria 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 111 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.

  • Corniola anxanthica (Ten.) C.Presl
  • Corniola mantica (Pollini) C.Presl
  • Corniola ovata (Waldst. & Kit.) C.Presl
  • Corniola tinctoria (L.) Medik.
  • Corniola tinctoria var. plena K.Koch
  • Corniola virgata C.Presl
  • Cytisus frutescens Vuk.
  • Cytisus ovatus (Waldst. & Kit.) Vuk.
  • Cytisus tinctoria (L.) Vis.
  • Cytisus tinctorius (L.) Vis.
  • Genista alpestris Bertol.
  • Genista alpicola Schur
  • Genista anxantica Griseb.
  • Genista anxantica Ten.
  • Genista banatica (Simonk.) Holub
  • Genista calcicola Schur
  • Genista campestris Janka
  • Genista coriacea Kit.
  • Genista delarbrei Lecoq & Lamotte
  • Genista depressa Ten.
  • Genista diffusa Ten.
  • Genista donetzica Kotov
  • Genista dumetorum G.Nicholson
  • Genista elata (Moench) Wender.

and 87 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.