Reseda luteaL.

dyer's rocketdyers weldweldwild mignonetteyellow mignonette

WFO wfo-0000462651 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Reseda lutea, photographed by Pavel Kacl
fig. a Pavel Kacl, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-07 / obs. 204126346
Reseda lutea, photographed by Yann Kemper
fig. b Yann Kemper, CC0 1.0 / obs. 204130549
Reseda lutea, photographed by Grzegorz Grzejszczak
fig. c Grzegorz Grzejszczak, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 203261712
Reseda lutea, photographed by Karen Fry
fig. d Karen Fry, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 202993730
Reseda lutea, photographed by Aleksei Baushev
fig. e Aleksei Baushev, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 201638247
Reseda lutea, photographed by Y. Liu
fig. f Y. Liu, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 202711399
Reseda lutea, photographed by Donald Davesne
fig. g Donald Davesne, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 201910511
Reseda lutea, photographed by Karen Fry
fig. h Karen Fry, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 201045911

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 54 botanical countries

Regions where Reseda lutea is native: Algeria, Canary Is., Cape Provinces, Egypt, Free State, KwaZulu-Natal, Lesotho, Libya, Morocco, Northern Provinces, Tunisia, Western Sahara, Cyprus, East Aegean Is., Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kirgizstan, Lebanon-Syria, North Caucasus, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Sinai, Tadzhikistan, Transcaucasus, Türkiye, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Albania, Austria, Baleares, Belgium, Bulgaria, Corse, Czechia-Slovakia, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Kriti, Krym, Netherlands, NW. Balkan Pen., Poland, Portugal, Romania, South European Russia, Spain, Switzerland, Türkiye-in-Europe, Ukraine AlgeriaCape ProvincesEgyptFree StateKwaZulu-NatalLesothoLibyaMoroccoNorthern ProvincesTunisiaWestern SaharaCyprusEast Aegean Is.IranIraqKazakhstanKirgizstanLebanon-SyriaNorth CaucasusPalestineSaudi ArabiaSinaiTadzhikistanTranscaucasusTürkiyeTurkmenistanUzbekistanAlbaniaAustriaBelgiumBulgariaCorseCzechia-SlovakiaFranceGermanyGreeceHungaryIrelandItalyKritiKrymNetherlandsNW. Balkan Pen.PolandPortugalRomaniaSouth European RussiaSpainSwitzerlandTürkiye-in-EuropeUkraine Canary Is.Baleares
Native distribution of Reseda lutea, 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
Baleares BAL
Belgium BGM
Bulgaria BUL
Corse COR
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
France FRA
Germany GER
Great Britain GRB
Greece GRC
Hungary HUN
Ireland IRE
Italy ITA
Kriti KRI
Krym KRY
Netherlands NET
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Poland POL
Portugal POR
Romania ROM
South European Russia RUS
Spain SPA
Switzerland SWI
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE
Ukraine UKR
Cyprus CYP ASIA-TEMPERATE
East Aegean Is. EAI
Iran IRN
Iraq IRQ
Kazakhstan KAZ
Kirgizstan KGZ
Lebanon-Syria LBS
North Caucasus NCS
Palestine PAL
Saudi Arabia SAU
Sinai SIN
Tadzhikistan TZK
Transcaucasus TCS
Türkiye TUR
Turkmenistan TKM
Uzbekistan UZB
Algeria ALG AFRICA
Canary Is. CNY
Cape Provinces CPP
Egypt EGY
Free State OFS
KwaZulu-Natal NAT
Lesotho LES
Libya LBY
Morocco MOR
Northern Provinces TVL
Tunisia TUN
Western Sahara WSA

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.

Flowering 1,201 in flower of 1,288 examined

Peak flowering in Jun. Each bar is the share of Reseda lutea 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. 1,201 of 1,288 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 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 1,958 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -9.7 °C -2.5 °C 4.2 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 19.0 °C 24.4 °C 29.0 °C
Annual rainfall 469 mm 683 mm 1,173 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 63 mm 124 mm 212 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 1,958 research-grade observations of Reseda lutea 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 64 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.

  • Reseda benitoi Sennen
  • Reseda clausa Rchb. ex Müll.Arg.
  • Reseda crispa Mill.
  • Reseda dutoitii Sennen & Mauricio
  • Reseda fluminensis Simonk.
  • Reseda gracilis Ten.
  • Reseda inflata Ehrenb. ex Müll.Arg.
  • Reseda laevigata G.Don
  • Reseda lamottei Jord. ex Nyman
  • Reseda lanceolata var. neglecta (Müll.Arg.) Pau & Font Quer
  • Reseda lutea f. flaccida Müll.Arg.
  • Reseda lutea f. hispidula Müll.Arg.
  • Reseda lutea f. mucronata (Tineo) Müll.Arg.
  • Reseda lutea prol. serratifolia Sennen
  • Reseda lutea subsp. eu-lutea Maire
  • Reseda lutea subsp. gracilis (Ten.) Arcang.
  • Reseda lutea subsp. mucronata (Tineo) Arcang.
  • Reseda lutea subvar. hispidula (Müll.Arg.) Rouy & Foucaud
  • Reseda lutea subvar. minor (Müll.Arg.) Caruel
  • Reseda lutea var. brevipes Rouy
  • Reseda lutea var. crispa (Mill.) Gray
  • Reseda lutea var. filiformis Abdallah & de Wit
  • Reseda lutea var. gracilis (Ten.) Lamotte
  • Reseda lutea var. hispidula (Müll.Arg.) Willk.

and 40 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.