Lysimachia arvensis(L.) U.Manns & Anderb.

scarlet pimpernel

WFO wfo-0000744184 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Lysimachia arvensis, photographed by Zeke Marshall
fig. a Zeke Marshall, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-13 / obs. 205815136
Lysimachia arvensis, photographed by Michal Honskus
fig. b Michal Honskus, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205425094
Lysimachia arvensis, photographed by Michel Langeveld
fig. c Michel Langeveld, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205165091
Lysimachia arvensis, photographed by Daniel Cahen
fig. d Daniel Cahen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205546361
Lysimachia arvensis, photographed by Yann Kemper
fig. e Yann Kemper, CC0 1.0 / obs. 203606965
Lysimachia arvensis, photographed by Piermario Maculan
fig. f Piermario Maculan, CC0 1.0 / obs. 204199427
Lysimachia arvensis, photographed by Daniel Cahen
fig. g Daniel Cahen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205539782
Lysimachia arvensis, photographed by AnimalObserverDeniz321
fig. h AnimalObserverDeniz321, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205158127

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.

Confused withby our own model

These are not lookalikes we guessed at. Each one is a species our identification model genuinely mistook for this plant, and how many times. The error rate is published.

Flowering n = 12,305 observations

Peak flowering in Apr, from 12,305 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

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.

  • Anagallis amoena Heldr.
  • Anagallis arabica Duby
  • Anagallis arvensis L.
  • Anagallis arvensis f. arvensis
  • Anagallis arvensis f. carnea (Schrank) Schinz & R.Keller
  • Anagallis arvensis f. coerulea Arechav.
  • Anagallis arvensis f. decipiens (Uechtr.) Schinz & R.Keller
  • Anagallis arvensis f. lilacina (Alef.) Schinz & R.Keller
  • Anagallis arvensis f. pallida (Hook.f.) Hyl.
  • Anagallis arvensis f. purpurea (Douie) P.D.Sell
  • Anagallis arvensis subsp. foemina (Mill.) Schinz & Thell. ex Schinz & R.Keller
  • Anagallis arvensis subsp. phoenicea (Scop.) Vollm.
  • Anagallis arvensis subsp. phoenicea (Scop.) Vollm.
  • Anagallis arvensis unranked decipiens Uechtr.
  • Anagallis arvensis var. carnea (Schrank) Boenn.
  • Anagallis arvensis var. immaculata Lej.
  • Anagallis arvensis var. lilacina Alef.
  • Anagallis arvensis var. pallida (Hook.f.) Hook.f.
  • Anagallis arvensis var. phoenicea Gouan
  • Anagallis arvensis var. phoenicea (Scop.) Baumg.
  • Anagallis arvensis var. platyphylloides Pau
  • Anagallis arvensis var. purpurea Douie
  • Anagallis arvensis var. repens (DC.) Merino
  • Anagallis arvensis var. tridyma Klett & Richt.

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.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice, no toxicity claim and no native range, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.