Plantago indicaL.

Branched Plantainsand plantain

WFO wfo-0000478468 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Plantago indica, photographed by Andre Hosper
fig. a Andre Hosper, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-08 / obs. 204953363
Plantago indica, photographed by nmoorhatch
fig. b nmoorhatch, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 196322788
Plantago indica, photographed by Andre Hosper
fig. c Andre Hosper, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 158318519
Plantago indica, photographed by Grzegorz Grzejszczak
fig. d Grzegorz Grzejszczak, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 152897562
Plantago indica, photographed by Aleksei Baushev
fig. e Aleksei Baushev, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 152514310
Plantago indica, photographed by Aleksei Baushev
fig. f Aleksei Baushev, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 152740513
Plantago indica, photographed by Thomas Gyselinck
fig. g Thomas Gyselinck, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 149382349
Plantago indica, photographed by Michael D. Pirie
fig. h Michael D. Pirie, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 146349531

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 39 botanical countries

Regions where Plantago indica is native: Egypt, Libya, Altay, East Aegean Is., Iran, Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan, Lebanon-Syria, North Caucasus, Palestine, Sinai, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, West Siberia, Albania, Austria, Belarus, Bulgaria, Central European Russia, Corse, Czechia-Slovakia, East European Russia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Kriti, Krym, NW. Balkan Pen., Poland, Romania, Sardegna, South European Russia, Spain, Türkiye-in-Europe, Ukraine EgyptLibyaAltayEast Aegean Is.IranKazakhstanKirgizstanLebanon-SyriaNorth CaucasusPalestineSinaiTranscaucasusTürkiyeTurkmenistanUzbekistanWest SiberiaAlbaniaAustriaBelarusBulgariaCentral European RussiaCorseCzechia-SlovakiaEast European RussiaFranceGermanyGreeceHungaryItalyKritiKrymNW. Balkan Pen.PolandRomaniaSouth European RussiaSpainTürkiye-in-EuropeUkraine Sardegna
Native distribution of Plantago indica, 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
Austria AUT
Belarus BLR
Bulgaria BUL
Central European Russia RUC
Corse COR
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
East European Russia RUE
France FRA
Germany GER
Greece GRC
Hungary HUN
Italy ITA
Kriti KRI
Krym KRY
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Poland POL
Romania ROM
Sardegna SAR
South European Russia RUS
Spain SPA
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE
Ukraine UKR
Altay ALT ASIA-TEMPERATE
East Aegean Is. EAI
Iran IRN
Kazakhstan KAZ
Kirgizstan KGZ
Lebanon-Syria LBS
North Caucasus NCS
Palestine PAL
Sinai SIN
Transcaucasus TCS
Türkiye TUR
Turkmenistan TKM
Uzbekistan UZB
West Siberia WSB
Egypt EGY AFRICA
Libya LBY

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 96 in flower of 132 examined

Peak flowering in Jul. Each bar is the share of Plantago indica 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. 96 of 132 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 5 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 1,466 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -11.0 °C -2.4 °C 7.2 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 22.9 °C 25.9 °C 32.1 °C
Annual rainfall 390 mm 608 mm 1,225 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 7 mm 106 mm 267 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 1,466 research-grade observations of Plantago indica 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 27 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.

  • Plantago annua (Thuill.) Rauschert
  • Plantago arenaria Waldst. & Kit.
  • Plantago arenaria f. rossica Tuzs.
  • Plantago arenaria subsp. orientalis (Soják) Greuter & Burdet
  • Plantago arenaria var. divaricata Boiss.
  • Plantago arenaria var. garganica Ten.
  • Plantago arenaria var. rossica (Tuzson) Lewalle
  • Plantago indica subsp. orientalis Soó
  • Plantago indica var. rossica Pilg.
  • Plantago italica S.G.Gmel. ex Steud.
  • Plantago latifolia Wissjul.
  • Plantago psyllia St.-Lag.
  • Plantago psyllium L.
  • Plantago ramosa Asch.
  • Plantago ruthenica Adams ex Decne.
  • Plantago scabra Moench
  • Plantago scabra subsp. orientalis (Soják) Tzvelev
  • Psyllium annuum Thuill.
  • Psyllium arenarium (Waldst. & Kit.) Mirb.
  • Psyllium arenarium subsp. orientale (Soó) Soják
  • Psyllium erectum Dum.Cours.
  • Psyllium indicum Dum.Cours.
  • Psyllium indicum (L.) Mirb.
  • Psyllium indicum subsp. orientale Soják

and 3 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. 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.