Podophyllum hexandrumRoyle

Himalayan mayapple

WFO wfo-0000397412 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.

Podophyllum hexandrum, photographed by John Kenrick Gibson
fig. a John Kenrick Gibson, CC0 1.0 / 2022-05-05 / obs. 196434787
Podophyllum hexandrum, photographed by Name
fig. b Name, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 196742334
Podophyllum hexandrum, photographed by John Kenrick Gibson
fig. c John Kenrick Gibson, CC0 1.0 / obs. 196434820
Podophyllum hexandrum, photographed by Name
fig. d Name, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 196742366
Podophyllum hexandrum, photographed by John Kenrick Gibson
fig. e John Kenrick Gibson, CC0 1.0 / obs. 196407853
Podophyllum hexandrum, photographed by Chao Shi
fig. f Chao Shi, CC0 1.0 / obs. 144374570
Podophyllum hexandrum, photographed by John Kenrick Gibson
fig. g John Kenrick Gibson, CC0 1.0 / obs. 196407878
Podophyllum hexandrum, photographed by Siddarth Machado
fig. h Siddarth Machado, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 61309958

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 Podophyllum hexandrum is native: Afghanistan, China North-Central, China South-Central, Qinghai, Tibet, East Himalaya, Nepal, Pakistan, West Himalaya AfghanistanChina North-CentralChina South-CentralQinghaiTibetEast HimalayaNepalPakistanWest Himalaya
Native distribution of Podophyllum hexandrum, 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
Afghanistan AFG ASIA-TEMPERATE
China North-Central CHN
China South-Central CHC
Qinghai CHQ
Tibet CHT
East Himalaya EHM ASIA-TROPICAL
Nepal NEP
Pakistan PAK
West Himalaya WHM

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 165 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -23.3 °C -15.3 °C -7.3 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 10.0 °C 14.5 °C 21.6 °C
Annual rainfall 622 mm 1,346 mm 2,625 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 10 mm 56 mm 200 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 165 research-grade observations of Podophyllum hexandrum 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 23 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.

  • Dysosma emodi (Wall. ex Honigberger) M.Hiroe
  • Podophyllum emodi Wall. ex Hook.f. & Thomson
  • Podophyllum emodi Wall. ex Honigberger
  • Podophyllum emodi var. axillare R.Chatterjee & Mukerjee
  • Podophyllum emodi var. bhootanense R.Chatterjee & Mukerjee
  • Podophyllum emodi var. chinense Sprague
  • Podophyllum emodi var. hexandrum (Royle) R.Chatterjee & Mukerjee
  • Podophyllum emodi var. jaeschkei R.Chatterjee & Mukerjee
  • Podophyllum emodi var. royleana Wall. ex Sprague
  • Podophyllum hexandrum var. axillare (R.Chatterjee & Mukerjee) Browicz
  • Podophyllum hexandrum var. bhootanense (R.Chatterjee & Mukerjee) Browicz
  • Podophyllum hexandrum var. chinense (Sprague) Stearn ex Cubey
  • Podophyllum hexandrum var. emodi (Wall. ex Honigberger) Seliv.-Gor.
  • Podophyllum hexandrum var. jaeschkei (R.Chatterjee & Mukerjee) Browicz
  • Podophyllum hexandrum var. sikkimense (R.Chatterjee & Mukerjee) R.C.Srivast.
  • Podophyllum himalayense Le Maout & Decne.
  • Podophyllum leichtlinii Langlet
  • Podophyllum sikkimense R.Chatterjee & Mukerjee
  • Sinopodophyllum emodi (Wall. ex Honigberger) T.S.Ying
  • Sinopodophyllum hexandrum (Royle) T.S.Ying
  • Sinopodophyllum hexandrum subsp. ramgopalii D.Maity, J.Ghosh & Midday
  • Sinopodophyllum hexandrum var. chinense (Sprague) Stearn ex J.M.H.Shaw & Cubey
  • Sinopodophyllum hexandrum var. emodi (Wall. ex Honigberger) J.M.H.Shaw

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.