Onobrychis alba(Waldst. & Kit.) Desv.

WFO wfo-0000204829 Accepted WFO 2026-06 5 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–e · 3 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 3 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.

Onobrychis alba, photographed by Emanuele Santarelli
fig. a Emanuele Santarelli, CC BY-SA 4.0 / 2021-06-27 / obs. 139492869
Onobrychis alba, photographed by Julia Moning
fig. b Julia Moning, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 83915115
Onobrychis alba, photographed by Emanuele Santarelli
fig. c Emanuele Santarelli, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 139492971
Onobrychis alba, photographed by Emanuele Santarelli
fig. d Emanuele Santarelli, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 139492833
Onobrychis alba, photographed by Silvia Scandura
fig. e Silvia Scandura, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 128029629

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 9 botanical countries

Regions where Onobrychis alba is native: Algeria, Morocco, Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, NW. Balkan Pen., Romania, Türkiye-in-Europe AlgeriaMoroccoAlbaniaBulgariaGreeceItalyNW. Balkan Pen.RomaniaTürkiye-in-Europe
Native distribution of Onobrychis alba, 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
Bulgaria BUL
Greece GRC
Italy ITA
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Romania ROM
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE
Algeria ALG AFRICA
Morocco MOR

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.

Also published as 34 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.

  • Hedysarum album Waldst. & Kit.
  • Hedysarum echinatum Guss.
  • Onobrychis alba subsp. laconica (Orph. ex Boiss.) Hayek
  • Onobrychis alba subsp. macedonica Micevski
  • Onobrychis alba var. affinis Hausskn.
  • Onobrychis alba var. dalmatica Širj.
  • Onobrychis alba var. echinata (Vandas) Micevski
  • Onobrychis alba var. paucidentata (Pomel) Batt.
  • Onobrychis alba var. rhodopea Degen & Dörfl.
  • Onobrychis alba var. striatula (Velen.) Hand.-Mazz.
  • Onobrychis alba var. varia Hausskn.
  • Onobrychis bertiscea Širj. & Rech.f.
  • Onobrychis calcarea Vandas
  • Onobrychis calcarea f. echinata (Vandas) Širj.
  • Onobrychis calcarea f. kosaninii Širj.
  • Onobrychis calcarea var. echinata Vandas
  • Onobrychis echinata Don
  • Onobrychis echinata G.Don
  • Onobrychis formanekii Heldr. ex Formánek
  • Onobrychis halacsyi Formánek
  • Onobrychis heldreichii Formánek
  • Onobrychis heldreichii Bunge ex Boiss.
  • Onobrychis laconica Orph. ex Boiss.
  • Onobrychis laconica var. parvifolia Halácsy

and 10 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. 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.