Portulaca oleraceaL.

Common Purslane

WFO wfo-0000484425 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Portulaca oleracea, photographed by Alexis Tinker-Tsavalas
fig. a Alexis Tinker-Tsavalas, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-10 / obs. 204921357
Portulaca oleracea, photographed by Joseph Aubert
fig. b Joseph Aubert, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 202366072
Portulaca oleracea, photographed by Ryan Sorrells
fig. c Ryan Sorrells, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203402630
Portulaca oleracea, photographed by Lexi Amico
fig. d Lexi Amico, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 205732222
Portulaca oleracea, photographed by Yann Kemper
fig. e Yann Kemper, CC0 1.0 / obs. 202490638
Portulaca oleracea, photographed by Catherine C. Galley
fig. f Catherine C. Galley, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 201689568
Portulaca oleracea, photographed by Michele Jones
fig. g Michele Jones, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203242538
Portulaca oleracea, photographed by Michele Jones
fig. h Michele Jones, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203237963

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.

Confused withby our own model

These are not lookalikes we guessed at. Each one is a species our identification model genuinely mistook for this plant, and how many times. The error rate is published.

Flowering n = 2,198 observations

Peak flowering in Jul, from 2,198 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

Also published as 40 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.

  • Portulaca consanguinea Schltdl.
  • Portulaca fosbergii Poelln.
  • Portulaca fosbergii var. major Poelln.
  • Portulaca hortensis Rupr.
  • Portulaca intermedia Link ex Schltdl.
  • Portulaca latifolia Hornem.
  • Portulaca marginata Kunth
  • Portulaca neglecta Mack. & Bush
  • Portulaca officinarum Crantz
  • Portulaca oleracea f. alba Alef.
  • Portulaca oleracea f. aurantia Alef.
  • Portulaca oleracea f. aurea Alef.
  • Portulaca oleracea f. caryophyllina Alef.
  • Portulaca oleracea f. gillesii Alef.
  • Portulaca oleracea f. haageana Alef.
  • Portulaca oleracea f. parvifolia (Haw.) Alef.
  • Portulaca oleracea f. rosea Alef.
  • Portulaca oleracea f. sativa (DC.) Alef.
  • Portulaca oleracea f. striata Alef.
  • Portulaca oleracea f. sulfurea Alef.
  • Portulaca oleracea f. violacea Alef.
  • Portulaca oleracea subsp. granulatostellulata (Poelln.) Danin & H.G.Baker
  • Portulaca oleracea subsp. oleracea
  • Portulaca oleracea subsp. sativa (Haw.) Čelak.

and 16 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.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice, no toxicity claim and no native range, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.