Herniaria incanaLam.

gray rupturewort

WFO wfo-0000720690 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Herniaria incana, photographed by David Delon
fig. a David Delon, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-06-16 / obs. 136806692
Herniaria incana, photographed by Dmitriy Bochkov
fig. b Dmitriy Bochkov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 175425947
Herniaria incana, photographed by Galyna Mykytynets
fig. c Galyna Mykytynets, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 131655218
Herniaria incana, photographed by Dmitriy Bochkov
fig. d Dmitriy Bochkov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 43423536
Herniaria incana, photographed by Dmitriy Bochkov
fig. e Dmitriy Bochkov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 166561171
Herniaria incana, photographed by Dmitriy Bochkov
fig. f Dmitriy Bochkov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 166556474
Herniaria incana, photographed by Максим Шумских
fig. g Максим Шумских, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 81999560
Herniaria incana, photographed by Igor Balashov
fig. h Igor Balashov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 76518833

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 Herniaria incana is native: Algeria, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon-Syria, North Caucasus, Palestine, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, Turkmenistan, Albania, Belarus, Bulgaria, Czechia-Slovakia, East European Russia, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Krym, NW. Balkan Pen., Romania, South European Russia, Spain, Türkiye-in-Europe, Ukraine AlgeriaIranIraqLebanon-SyriaNorth CaucasusPalestineTranscaucasusTürkiyeTurkmenistanAlbaniaBelarusBulgariaCzechia-SlovakiaEast European RussiaFranceGreeceHungaryItalyKrymNW. Balkan Pen.RomaniaSouth European RussiaSpainTürkiye-in-EuropeUkraine
Native distribution of Herniaria 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.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Albania ALB EUROPE
Belarus BLR
Bulgaria BUL
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
East European Russia RUE
France FRA
Greece GRC
Hungary HUN
Italy ITA
Krym KRY
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Romania ROM
South European Russia RUS
Spain SPA
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE
Ukraine UKR
Iran IRN ASIA-TEMPERATE
Iraq IRQ
Lebanon-Syria LBS
North Caucasus NCS
Palestine PAL
Transcaucasus TCS
Türkiye TUR
Turkmenistan TKM
Algeria ALG AFRICA

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 293 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -12.2 °C -4.3 °C 0.7 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 20.7 °C 26.2 °C 29.2 °C
Annual rainfall 393 mm 646 mm 1,222 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 6 mm 108 mm 188 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 293 research-grade observations of Herniaria 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 2 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.

  • Herniaria besseri Fisch. ex Hornem.
  • Herniaria macrocarpa Sm.

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.