Hippophae rhamnoidesL.

Sea-buckthornsea-buckthornseaberry

WFO wfo-0000723743 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Hippophae rhamnoides, photographed by Anastasia_Surkova
fig. a Anastasia_Surkova, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-12 / obs. 205892147

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
197418
Filed as
Hippophae rhamnoides L.
Det. by
M. Khutsishvili 2001-01-01
Collected
D. E. Atha 2001-08-12
Origin
GE
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 41 botanical countries

Regions where Hippophae rhamnoides is native: Afghanistan, Altay, Buryatiya, China South-Central, Iran, Irkutsk, Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan, Mongolia, North Caucasus, Tadzhikistan, Tibet, Türkiye, Turkmenistan, Tuva, Uzbekistan, Xinjiang, Pakistan, West Himalaya, Austria, Baltic States, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czechia-Slovakia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Northwest European Russia, Norway, NW. Balkan Pen., Poland, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine AfghanistanAltayBuryatiyaChina South-CentralIranIrkutskKazakhstanKirgizstanMongoliaNorth CaucasusTadzhikistanTibetTürkiyeTurkmenistanTuvaUzbekistanXinjiangPakistanWest HimalayaAustriaBaltic StatesBelgiumBulgariaCzechia-SlovakiaDenmarkFinlandFranceGermanyHungaryItalyNetherlandsNorthwest European RussiaNorwayNW. Balkan Pen.PolandRomaniaSpainSwedenSwitzerlandUkraine
Native distribution of Hippophae rhamnoides, 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
Austria AUT EUROPE
Baltic States BLT
Belgium BGM
Bulgaria BUL
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
Denmark DEN
Finland FIN
France FRA
Germany GER
Great Britain GRB
Hungary HUN
Italy ITA
Netherlands NET
Northwest European Russia RUW
Norway NOR
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Poland POL
Romania ROM
Spain SPA
Sweden SWE
Switzerland SWI
Ukraine UKR
Afghanistan AFG ASIA-TEMPERATE
Altay ALT
Buryatiya BRY
China South-Central CHC
Iran IRN
Irkutsk IRK
Kazakhstan KAZ
Kirgizstan KGZ
Mongolia MON
North Caucasus NCS
Tadzhikistan TZK
Tibet CHT
Türkiye TUR
Turkmenistan TKM
Tuva TVA
Uzbekistan UZB
Xinjiang CHX
Pakistan PAK ASIA-TROPICAL
West Himalaya WHM

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.

Where it actually grows measured, from 1,929 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -21.7 °C -7.9 °C 3.5 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 17.5 °C 22.3 °C 25.6 °C
Annual rainfall 418 mm 686 mm 1,129 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 35 mm 112 mm 199 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 1,929 research-grade observations of Hippophae rhamnoides 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 22 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.

  • Argussiera rhamnoides (L.) Bubani
  • Elaeagnus rhamnoides (L.) A.Nelson
  • Hippophae angustifolia Dippel
  • Hippophae carpatica (Rousi) Landolt
  • Hippophae caucasica (Rousi) Tzvelev
  • Hippophae fluviatilis (Soest) Rivas Mart.
  • Hippophae littoralis Salisb.
  • Hippophae mongolica (Rousi) Tzvelev
  • Hippophae mongolica var. ladyginii Tzvelev
  • Hippophae rhamnoidea St.-Lag.
  • Hippophae rhamnoides subsp. fluviatilis Soest
  • Hippophae rhamnoides subsp. maritima Soest
  • Hippophae rhamnoides subsp. pamiroalaica Avdeev
  • Hippophae salicifolia subsp. yunnanensis (Rousi) Hyvönen
  • Hippophae sibirica Steud.
  • Hippophae taurica Dippel
  • Hippophae turkestanica (Rousi) Tzvelev
  • Hippophae wolongensis (Y.S.Lian, K.Sun & X.L.Chen) Banfi, Galasso & Soldano
  • Hippophae yunnanensis (Rousi) Tzvelev
  • Hippophaes rhamnoideum (L.) St.-Lag.
  • Osyris rhamnoides (L.) Scop.
  • Rhamnoides hippophae Moench

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.