Rheum tataricumL.f.

WFO wfo-0000403596 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Rheum tataricum, photographed by Andrew Bazdyrev
fig. a Andrew Bazdyrev, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-05-10 / obs. 134331343
Rheum tataricum, photographed by Andrew Bazdyrev
fig. b Andrew Bazdyrev, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 134330779
Rheum tataricum, photographed by Andrew Bazdyrev
fig. c Andrew Bazdyrev, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 134327882
Rheum tataricum, photographed by Andrew Bazdyrev
fig. d Andrew Bazdyrev, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 134327389
Rheum tataricum, photographed by Oksana Antipova
fig. e Oksana Antipova, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 127707111
Rheum tataricum, photographed by Konstantin Grebennikov
fig. f Konstantin Grebennikov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 132190014
Rheum tataricum, photographed by Konstantin Grebennikov
fig. g Konstantin Grebennikov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 132189144
Rheum tataricum, photographed by Konstantin Grebennikov
fig. h Konstantin Grebennikov, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 132141156

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 6 botanical countries

Regions where Rheum tataricum is native: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Xinjiang, East European Russia, South European Russia, Ukraine KazakhstanUzbekistanXinjiangEast European RussiaSouth European RussiaUkraine
Native distribution of Rheum tataricum, 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
Kazakhstan KAZ ASIA-TEMPERATE
Uzbekistan UZB
Xinjiang CHX
East European Russia RUE EUROPE
South European Russia RUS
Ukraine UKR

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 519 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -15.7 °C -13.1 °C -8.8 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 28.3 °C 30.4 °C 34.3 °C
Annual rainfall 147 mm 230 mm 310 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 23 mm 38 mm 63 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 519 research-grade observations of Rheum tataricum 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 2 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.

  • Rheum caspicum Pall.
  • Rheum songaricum Schrenk.

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. 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.