Helianthemum violaceum(Cav.) Pers.

WFO wfo-0000717824 Accepted WFO 2026-06 5 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–e · 4 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 4 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.

Helianthemum violaceum, photographed by aroche
fig. a aroche, CC BY 4.0 / 2013-05-01 / obs. 12762583
Helianthemum violaceum, photographed by aroche
fig. b aroche, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 12762584
Helianthemum violaceum, photographed by aroche
fig. c aroche, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 12762582
Helianthemum violaceum, photographed by aroche
fig. d aroche, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 12762587
Helianthemum violaceum, photographed by aroche
fig. e aroche, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 12762586

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 6 botanical countries

Regions where Helianthemum violaceum is native: Algeria, Morocco, France, Italy, Portugal, Spain AlgeriaMoroccoFranceItalyPortugalSpain
Native distribution of Helianthemum violaceum, 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
France FRA EUROPE
Italy ITA
Portugal POR
Spain SPA
Algeria ALG AFRICA
Morocco MOR

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 85 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 0.8 °C 4.9 °C 8.9 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 25.4 °C 28.8 °C 32.6 °C
Annual rainfall 308 mm 487 mm 624 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 28 mm 56 mm 92 mm

It is found where winters are cool but frost is light or absent. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 85 research-grade observations of Helianthemum violaceum 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 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.

  • Cistus lavandulifolius (Mill.) Lam.
  • Cistus racemosus Cav.
  • Cistus racemosus L.
  • Cistus violaceus Cav.
  • Helianthemum apenninum subsp. violaceum (Cav.) O.Bolòs & Vigo
  • Helianthemum apenninum var. tomentellum (Willk.) O.Bolòs & Vigo
  • Helianthemum lavandulifolium Mill.
  • Helianthemum leptophyllum var. albiflorum Willk.
  • Helianthemum leptophyllum var. longifolium Freyn ex Willk.
  • Helianthemum lineare var. violaceum (Cav.) Rouy
  • Helianthemum pilosum f. farinosum (Dunal) Grosser
  • Helianthemum pilosum subsp. subobtusatum (Maire) Maire
  • Helianthemum pilosum subsp. violaceum (Cav.) Borja & Rivas Mart.
  • Helianthemum pilosum var. carneum Raynaud
  • Helianthemum pilosum var. farinosum (Dunal) Maire
  • Helianthemum pilosum var. hirticalycinum Maire
  • Helianthemum pilosum var. pseudoasperum Molero & Rovira
  • Helianthemum pilosum var. racemosum (L.) Nyman
  • Helianthemum pilosum var. subobtusatum Maire
  • Helianthemum pilosum var. tomentellum Willk.
  • Helianthemum pilosum var. violaceum (Cav.) Boiss.
  • Helianthemum polifolium var. tomentellum (Willk.) Samp.
  • Helianthemum racemosum (L.) Pau
  • Helianthemum racemosum Pers.

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. 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.