Polygonatum pubescens(Willd.) Pursh

hairy Solomon's seal

WFO wfo-0000715997 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Polygonatum pubescens, photographed by Lynn Harper
fig. a Lynn Harper, CC0 1.0 / 2022-05-29 / obs. 201829870
Polygonatum pubescens, photographed by John Baur
fig. b John Baur, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 201045806
Polygonatum pubescens, photographed by Lynn Harper
fig. c Lynn Harper, CC0 1.0 / obs. 201063346
Polygonatum pubescens, photographed by Alex Goodfriend
fig. d Alex Goodfriend, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 200872107
Polygonatum pubescens, photographed by Steven Lamonde
fig. e Steven Lamonde, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 202467788
Polygonatum pubescens, photographed by Steven Lamonde
fig. f Steven Lamonde, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 202453229
Polygonatum pubescens, photographed by Lynn Harper
fig. g Lynn Harper, CC0 1.0 / obs. 200294005
Polygonatum pubescens, photographed by Alison Northup
fig. h Alison Northup, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 200556005

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 30 botanical countries

Regions where Polygonatum pubescens is native: Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Brunswick, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Nova Scotia, Ohio, Ontario, Pennsylvania, Québec, Rhode I., Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin AlabamaConnecticutGeorgiaIllinoisIndianaIowaKentuckyMaineMarylandMassachusettsMichiganMinnesotaNew BrunswickNew HampshireNew JerseyNew YorkNorth CarolinaNova ScotiaOhioOntarioPennsylvaniaQuébecTennesseeVermontVirginiaWest VirginiaWisconsin DelawareDistrict of ColumbiaRhode I.
Native distribution of Polygonatum pubescens, 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
Alabama ALA NORTHERN AMERICA
Connecticut CNT
Delaware DEL
District of Columbia WDC
Georgia GEO
Illinois ILL
Indiana INI
Iowa IOW
Kentucky KTY
Maine MAI
Maryland MRY
Massachusetts MAS
Michigan MIC
Minnesota MIN
New Brunswick NBR
New Hampshire NWH
New Jersey NWJ
New York NWY
North Carolina NCA
Nova Scotia NSC
Ohio OHI
Ontario ONT
Pennsylvania PEN
Québec QUE
Rhode I. RHO
Tennessee TEN
Vermont VER
Virginia VRG
West Virginia WVA
Wisconsin WIS

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 258 in flower of 1,130 examined

Peak flowering in Mar. Each bar is the share of Polygonatum pubescens 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. 258 of 1,130 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 4 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 2,021 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -14.9 °C -8.4 °C -3.4 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 22.6 °C 26.1 °C 29.1 °C
Annual rainfall 858 mm 1,139 mm 1,487 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 139 mm 229 mm 319 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 2,021 research-grade observations of Polygonatum pubescens 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 16 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.

  • Convallaria pubescens Willd.
  • Polygonatum boreale Greene
  • Polygonatum boreale var. australe Farw.
  • Polygonatum boreale var. multflorum Farw.
  • Polygonatum cuneatum Greene
  • Polygonatum farwellii Bush
  • Polygonatum multiflorum var. pubescens (Willd.) Alph.Wood
  • Polygonatum pubescens f. cuneatum (Greene) Vict.
  • Polygonatum pubescens f. fultius Fernald & S.K.Harris
  • Polygonatum pubescens f. pubescens
  • Polygonatum pubescens subvar. australe (Farw.) Farw.
  • Polygonatum pubescens var. australe (Farw.) R.R.Gates
  • Polygonatum pubescens var. boreale (Greene) Farw.
  • Polygonatum pubescens var. cuneatum (Greene) Farw.
  • Polygonatum pubescens var. multiflorum (Farw.) Farw.
  • Sigillaria pubescens (Willd.) Raf.

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.