Mercurialis perennisL.

dog's mercury

WFO wfo-0000241769 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Mercurialis perennis, photographed by Марина Садыкова
fig. a Марина Садыкова, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-12 / obs. 205694453
Mercurialis perennis, photographed by Paul Braun
fig. b Paul Braun, CC0 1.0 / obs. 205113136
Mercurialis perennis, photographed by Jason Grant
fig. c Jason Grant, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205217864
Mercurialis perennis, photographed by Paul Braun
fig. d Paul Braun, CC0 1.0 / obs. 205152493
Mercurialis perennis, photographed by Jon Mortin
fig. e Jon Mortin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 204479935
Mercurialis perennis, photographed by Marc Riera
fig. f Marc Riera, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203792795
Mercurialis perennis, photographed by Aleksei Baushev
fig. g Aleksei Baushev, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203327063
Mercurialis perennis, photographed by Daniel Cahen
fig. h Daniel Cahen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 202818960

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 38 botanical countries

Regions where Mercurialis perennis is native: Algeria, Iran, North Caucasus, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, Albania, Austria, Baltic States, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Central European Russia, Corse, Czechia-Slovakia, Denmark, East European Russia, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Krym, Netherlands, Northwest European Russia, Norway, NW. Balkan Pen., Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sicilia, South European Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye-in-Europe, Ukraine AlgeriaIranNorth CaucasusTranscaucasusTürkiyeAlbaniaAustriaBaltic StatesBelarusBelgiumBulgariaCentral European RussiaCorseCzechia-SlovakiaDenmarkEast European RussiaFinlandFranceGermanyGreeceHungaryItalyKrymNetherlandsNorthwest European RussiaNorwayNW. Balkan Pen.PolandPortugalRomaniaSiciliaSouth European RussiaSpainSwedenSwitzerlandTürkiye-in-EuropeUkraine
Native distribution of Mercurialis perennis, 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
Austria AUT
Baltic States BLT
Belarus BLR
Belgium BGM
Bulgaria BUL
Central European Russia RUC
Corse COR
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
Denmark DEN
East European Russia RUE
Finland FIN
France FRA
Germany GER
Great Britain GRB
Greece GRC
Hungary HUN
Italy ITA
Krym KRY
Netherlands NET
Northwest European Russia RUW
Norway NOR
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Poland POL
Portugal POR
Romania ROM
Sicilia SIC
South European Russia RUS
Spain SPA
Sweden SWE
Switzerland SWI
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE
Ukraine UKR
Iran IRN ASIA-TEMPERATE
North Caucasus NCS
Transcaucasus TCS
Türkiye TUR
Algeria ALG AFRICA

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 2,028 in flower of 3,685 examined

Peak flowering in Apr. Each bar is the share of Mercurialis perennis 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. 2,028 of 3,685 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 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 2,018 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -12.1 °C -3.7 °C 2.9 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 17.9 °C 22.0 °C 24.8 °C
Annual rainfall 563 mm 761 mm 1,514 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 95 mm 145 mm 278 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 2,018 research-grade observations of Mercurialis perennis 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 17 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.

  • Mercurialis alpina Schur
  • Mercurialis cynocrambe Scop.
  • Mercurialis longifolia Host
  • Mercurialis nemoralis Salisb.
  • Mercurialis perennis f. genuina Müll.Arg.
  • Mercurialis perennis f. glabra Beck
  • Mercurialis perennis f. ovatifolia Hausskn.
  • Mercurialis perennis f. robusta Gross
  • Mercurialis perennis f. saxicola Beck
  • Mercurialis perennis f. sylvatica (Hoppe) Rouy & Foucaud
  • Mercurialis perennis subvar. alpina (Schur) Nyman
  • Mercurialis perennis subvar. sylvatica (Hoppe) Nyman
  • Mercurialis perennis var. brachyphylla Willk.
  • Mercurialis perennis var. subalpina Schur
  • Mercurialis sylvatica Hoppe
  • Mercurialis sylvestris Bubani
  • Synema perenne Dulac

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.