Pilosella flagellaris(Willd.) Arv.-Touv.

WFO wfo-0000122834 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 2 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 2 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.

Pilosella flagellaris, photographed by Étienne Lacroix-Carignan
fig. a Étienne Lacroix-Carignan, CC0 1.0 / 2021-06-09 / obs. 136990579

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 23 botanical countries

Regions where Pilosella flagellaris is native: North Caucasus, Transcaucasus, Austria, Baltic States, Belarus, Belgium, Central European Russia, Czechia-Slovakia, Denmark, East European Russia, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Netherlands, North European Russia, Northwest European Russia, NW. Balkan Pen., Poland, Romania, Sweden, Ukraine North CaucasusTranscaucasusAustriaBaltic StatesBelarusBelgiumCentral European RussiaCzechia-SlovakiaDenmarkEast European RussiaFinlandFranceGermanyHungaryNetherlandsNorth European RussiaNorthwest European RussiaNW. Balkan Pen.PolandRomaniaSwedenUkraine
Native distribution of Pilosella flagellaris, 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
Austria AUT EUROPE
Baltic States BLT
Belarus BLR
Belgium BGM
Central European Russia RUC
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
Denmark DEN
East European Russia RUE
Finland FIN
France FRA
Germany GER
Great Britain GRB
Hungary HUN
Netherlands NET
North European Russia RUN
Northwest European Russia RUW
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Poland POL
Romania ROM
Sweden SWE
Ukraine UKR
North Caucasus NCS ASIA-TEMPERATE
Transcaucasus TCS

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.

Where it actually grows measured, from 31 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -15.6 °C -7.9 °C 0.9 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 19.6 °C 23.1 °C 28.2 °C
Annual rainfall 659 mm 978 mm 1,666 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 120 mm 191 mm 305 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 31 research-grade observations of Pilosella flagellaris 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 35 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.

  • Hieracium anacraspedum (Rehmann) Üksip
  • Hieracium anisocephalum (Rehmann) Üksip
  • Hieracium brachyacron (Rehmann) Üksip
  • Hieracium brachyschistum (Zahn) Üksip
  • Hieracium chrysophthalmum Norrl.
  • Hieracium flagellare Willd.
  • Hieracium flagellare subsp. anacraspedum Rehmann
  • Hieracium flagellare subsp. anisocephalum Rehmann
  • Hieracium flagellare subsp. bicapitatum (P.D.Sell & C.West) P.D.Sell
  • Hieracium flagellare subsp. brachyacron Rehmann
  • Hieracium flagellare subsp. brachyschistum Zahn
  • Hieracium flagellare subsp. chrysophthalmum (Norrl.) Zahn
  • Hieracium flagellare subsp. hahnii Zahn
  • Hieracium flagellare subsp. homostegium (Norrl.) Zahn
  • Hieracium flagellare subsp. inceptans (Norrl.) Zahn
  • Hieracium flagellare subsp. petunnikovii Peter
  • Hieracium flagellare subsp. prognatum (Norrl.) Zahn
  • Hieracium flagellare subsp. pseudouliginosum Zahn
  • Hieracium flagellare subsp. ravnae-planinae K.Malý & Zahn
  • Hieracium flagellare subsp. tatrense Peter
  • Hieracium flagellare subsp. tweriense Zahn
  • Hieracium flagellare subsp. uliginosum Nägeli & Peter
  • Hieracium flagellare var. amauracron (Missbach & Zahn) Lepage
  • Hieracium flagellare var. pilosius Lepage

and 11 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.