Oxytropis pilosa(L.) DC.

WFO wfo-0000213921 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Oxytropis pilosa, photographed by Svyatoslav Knyazev
fig. a Svyatoslav Knyazev, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-29 / obs. 201546476
Oxytropis pilosa, photographed by Elias
fig. b Elias, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 200045544
Oxytropis pilosa, photographed by Иван Ковтун Ivan Kovtun
fig. c Иван Ковтун Ivan Kovtun, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 197786222
Oxytropis pilosa, photographed by Pavel Kacl
fig. d Pavel Kacl, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 194232714
Oxytropis pilosa, photographed by Aleksei Baushev
fig. e Aleksei Baushev, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 165129909
Oxytropis pilosa, photographed by Aleksei Baushev
fig. f Aleksei Baushev, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 149464086
Oxytropis pilosa, photographed by Силаева Татьяна Борисовна
fig. g Силаева Татьяна Борисовна, CC0 1.0 / obs. 149384850
Oxytropis pilosa, photographed by Galyna Mykytynets
fig. h Galyna Mykytynets, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 173001994

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 34 botanical countries

Regions where Oxytropis pilosa is native: Altay, Buryatiya, Iran, Irkutsk, Kazakhstan, Krasnoyarsk, North Caucasus, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, Tuva, West Siberia, Xinjiang, Yakutiya, Albania, Baltic States, Belarus, Bulgaria, Central European Russia, Czechia-Slovakia, East European Russia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Krym, Northwest European Russia, NW. Balkan Pen., Poland, Romania, South European Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine AltayBuryatiyaIranIrkutskKazakhstanKrasnoyarskNorth CaucasusTranscaucasusTürkiyeTuvaWest SiberiaXinjiangYakutiyaAlbaniaBaltic StatesBelarusBulgariaCentral European RussiaCzechia-SlovakiaEast European RussiaFranceGermanyGreeceHungaryItalyKrymNorthwest European RussiaNW. Balkan Pen.PolandRomaniaSouth European RussiaSwedenSwitzerlandUkraine
Native distribution of Oxytropis pilosa, 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
Baltic States BLT
Belarus BLR
Bulgaria BUL
Central European Russia RUC
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
East European Russia RUE
France FRA
Germany GER
Greece GRC
Hungary HUN
Italy ITA
Krym KRY
Northwest European Russia RUW
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Poland POL
Romania ROM
South European Russia RUS
Sweden SWE
Switzerland SWI
Ukraine UKR
Altay ALT ASIA-TEMPERATE
Buryatiya BRY
Iran IRN
Irkutsk IRK
Kazakhstan KAZ
Krasnoyarsk KRA
North Caucasus NCS
Transcaucasus TCS
Türkiye TUR
Tuva TVA
West Siberia WSB
Xinjiang CHX
Yakutiya YAK

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 185 in flower of 230 examined

Peak flowering in Jun. Each bar is the share of Oxytropis pilosa 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. 185 of 230 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 6 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. 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 2,007 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -20.7 °C -12.1 °C -3.5 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 22.0 °C 24.5 °C 27.3 °C
Annual rainfall 360 mm 535 mm 854 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 34 mm 91 mm 169 mm

It is found where winters are severely cold. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 2,007 research-grade observations of Oxytropis pilosa 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 11 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.

  • Astragalus ochroleucus Gilib.
  • Astragalus pilosus L.
  • Oxytropis caputoi Moraldo & la Valva
  • Oxytropis diffusa Ledeb.
  • Oxytropis pilosa subsp. hungarica (Borbás) Soó
  • Oxytropis pilosa var. hungarica Borbás
  • Oxytropis pilosa var. pilosa
  • Oxytropis pilosa var. pygmaea Beck
  • Oxytropis pygmaea (Beck) Tausch ex Hayek
  • Phaca pilosa (L.) Clairv.
  • Spiesia pilosa (L.) Kuntze

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.