Opopanax chironius(L.) W.D.J.Koch

WFO wfo-0000385155 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 5 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 5 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.

Opopanax chironius, photographed by Ruben Ciantia
fig. a Ruben Ciantia, CC BY 4.0 / 2020-02-08 / obs. 61069530
Opopanax chironius, photographed by Ljaž
fig. b Ljaž, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 195289125
Opopanax chironius, photographed by Claudio Sbaraglia
fig. c Claudio Sbaraglia, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 77221379
Opopanax chironius, photographed by Claudio Sbaraglia
fig. d Claudio Sbaraglia, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 77221497
Opopanax chironius, photographed by viridian
fig. e viridian, CC0 1.0 / obs. 73069863
Opopanax chironius, photographed by Claudio Sbaraglia
fig. f Claudio Sbaraglia, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 77221535
Opopanax chironius, photographed by Claudio Sbaraglia
fig. g Claudio Sbaraglia, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 77221405
Opopanax chironius, photographed by viridian
fig. h viridian, CC0 1.0 / obs. 73069859

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 11 botanical countries

Regions where Opopanax chironius is native: Albania, Bulgaria, France, Greece, Italy, NW. Balkan Pen., Romania, Sardegna, Sicilia, Spain, Türkiye-in-Europe AlbaniaBulgariaFranceGreeceItalyNW. Balkan Pen.RomaniaSiciliaSpainTürkiye-in-Europe Sardegna
Native distribution of Opopanax chironius, 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
Bulgaria BUL
France FRA
Greece GRC
Italy ITA
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Romania ROM
Sardegna SAR
Sicilia SIC
Spain SPA
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE

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 144 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -3.1 °C 1.7 °C 9.8 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 23.4 °C 26.7 °C 30.0 °C
Annual rainfall 595 mm 996 mm 1,605 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 48 mm 137 mm 230 mm

It is found where winters bring light 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 144 research-grade observations of Opopanax chironius 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 15 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.

  • Dorema chironium (L.) M.Hiroe
  • Laserpitium chironium L.
  • Malabaila opoponax Baill.
  • Malabaila orientalis Benth. & Hook.f. ex Arcang.
  • Maspeton chironium (L.) Raf.
  • Opopanax bulgaricus Velen.
  • Opopanax chironium (L.) W.D.J.Koch
  • Opopanax chironius subsp. bulgaricus (Vel.) N.Andreev
  • Opopanax glaber Bernh.
  • Opopanax opopanax (L.) H.Karst.
  • Pastinaca altissima Lam.
  • Pastinaca opopanax L.
  • Peucedanum opopanax (L.) M.Hiroe
  • Selinum opopanax (L.) Crantz
  • Siler chironium Crantz

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.