Hypochaeris glabraL.

smooth cat's ear

WFO wfo-0000005915 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Hypochaeris glabra, photographed by Millie Basden
fig. a Millie Basden, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-06 / obs. 204733425

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
01093010
Filed as
Hypochaeris glabra L.
Det. by
U. M. Resende 1994-07-02
Collected
U. M. Resende 1994-04-13
Origin
BR
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 42 botanical countries

Regions where Hypochaeris glabra is native: Algeria, Azores, Canary Is., Libya, Madeira, Morocco, Tunisia, Cyprus, East Aegean Is., Lebanon-Syria, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, Albania, Austria, Baleares, Belgium, Bulgaria, Central European Russia, Corse, Czechia-Slovakia, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Kriti, Netherlands, Norway, NW. Balkan Pen., Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sardegna, Sicilia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye-in-Europe, Ukraine AlgeriaLibyaMoroccoTunisiaCyprusEast Aegean Is.Lebanon-SyriaPalestineSaudi ArabiaTürkiyeAlbaniaAustriaBelgiumBulgariaCentral European RussiaCorseCzechia-SlovakiaDenmarkFranceGermanyGreeceIrelandItalyKritiNetherlandsNorwayNW. Balkan Pen.PolandPortugalRomaniaSiciliaSpainSwedenSwitzerlandTürkiye-in-EuropeUkraine AzoresCanary Is.MadeiraBalearesSardegna
Native distribution of Hypochaeris glabra, 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
Baleares BAL
Belgium BGM
Bulgaria BUL
Central European Russia RUC
Corse COR
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
Denmark DEN
France FRA
Germany GER
Great Britain GRB
Greece GRC
Ireland IRE
Italy ITA
Kriti KRI
Netherlands NET
Norway NOR
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Poland POL
Portugal POR
Romania ROM
Sardegna SAR
Sicilia SIC
Spain SPA
Sweden SWE
Switzerland SWI
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE
Ukraine UKR
Algeria ALG AFRICA
Azores AZO
Canary Is. CNY
Libya LBY
Madeira MDR
Morocco MOR
Tunisia TUN
Cyprus CYP ASIA-TEMPERATE
East Aegean Is. EAI
Lebanon-Syria LBS
Palestine PAL
Saudi Arabia SAU
Türkiye TUR

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 382 in flower of 565 examined

Proportion of examined Hypochaeris glabra in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 1 4 too few examined
Feb 10 20 50% 30% to 70%
Mar 61 79 77% 67% to 85%
Apr 141 195 72% 66% to 78%
May 48 85 56% 46% to 67%
Jun 10 20 50% 30% to 70%
Jul 4 9 44% 19% to 73%
Aug 3 6 50% 19% to 81%
Sep 40 62 65% 52% to 75%
Oct 43 58 74% 62% to 84%
Nov 13 17 76% 53% to 90%
Dec 8 10 80% 49% to 94%

Peak flowering in Dec. Each bar is the share of Hypochaeris glabra 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. 382 of 565 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. One month has fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for it. 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 2,030 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 1.7 °C 5.7 °C 10.1 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 19.9 °C 28.3 °C 34.8 °C
Annual rainfall 302 mm 643 mm 1,388 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 4 mm 13 mm 254 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 2,030 research-grade observations of Hypochaeris glabra 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 39 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.

  • Achyrophorus balbisii Hornem.
  • Cycnoseris australis Endl.
  • Hedypnois glabra (L.) F.W.Schmidt
  • Hieracium adscendens Brot.
  • Hyoseris tenella Thunb.
  • Hypochaeris adscendens Brot.
  • Hypochaeris arachnites Link
  • Hypochaeris balbisii Loisel.
  • Hypochaeris balbisii Willd.
  • Hypochaeris bartholdii Willd. ex Sch.Bip.
  • Hypochaeris boscoi Sennen
  • Hypochaeris candollei Regel
  • Hypochaeris capensis Less.
  • Hypochaeris contexta Wallr.
  • Hypochaeris dimorpha Brot.
  • Hypochaeris glabra subsp. minima (Cirillo) Arcang.
  • Hypochaeris glabra var. erostris Coss. & Germ.
  • Hypochaeris glabra var. glabra
  • Hypochaeris glabra var. hirsuta DC.
  • Hypochaeris glabra var. hispidula Peterm.
  • Hypochaeris glabra var. isocarpa Bisch.
  • Hypochaeris glabra var. loiseleuriana Godr.
  • Hypochaeris glabra var. thracica DC.
  • Hypochaeris heterosperma Schult. ex Sch.Bip.

and 15 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.