Spiraea alpinaPall.

WFO wfo-0001016063 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 3 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 3 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.

Spiraea alpina, photographed by Aleksei Baushev
fig. a Aleksei Baushev, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-09-09 / obs. 158428125
Spiraea alpina, photographed by Нурхайдарова Татьяна
fig. b Нурхайдарова Татьяна, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 85009366
Spiraea alpina, photographed by Aleksei Baushev
fig. c Aleksei Baushev, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 158428096
Spiraea alpina, photographed by Нурхайдарова Татьяна
fig. d Нурхайдарова Татьяна, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 85009357
Spiraea alpina, photographed by Aleksei Baushev
fig. e Aleksei Baushev, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 158428157
Spiraea alpina, photographed by Нурхайдарова Татьяна
fig. f Нурхайдарова Татьяна, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 85009377
Spiraea alpina, photographed by Rose Zappa
fig. g Rose Zappa, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 47195988
Spiraea alpina, photographed by Rose Zappa
fig. h Rose Zappa, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 47196004

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 16 botanical countries

Regions where Spiraea alpina is native: Altay, Buryatiya, China North-Central, China South-Central, China Southeast, Chita, Irkutsk, Kazakhstan, Krasnoyarsk, Mongolia, Qinghai, Tibet, Tuva, Xinjiang, East Himalaya, West Himalaya AltayBuryatiyaChina North-CentralChina South-CentralChina SoutheastChitaIrkutskKazakhstanKrasnoyarskMongoliaQinghaiTibetTuvaXinjiangEast HimalayaWest Himalaya
Native distribution of Spiraea alpina, 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
Altay ALT ASIA-TEMPERATE
Buryatiya BRY
China North-Central CHN
China South-Central CHC
China Southeast CHS
Chita CTA
Irkutsk IRK
Kazakhstan KAZ
Krasnoyarsk KRA
Mongolia MON
Qinghai CHQ
Tibet CHT
Tuva TVA
Xinjiang CHX
East Himalaya EHM ASIA-TROPICAL
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.

Also published as 8 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.

  • Spiraea alpina var. altaica O.Fedtsch. & B.Fedtsch.
  • Spiraea alpina var. altaica Maxim.
  • Spiraea fangii H.Y.Hu & X.J.He
  • Spiraea oblongifolia Regel ex Maxim.
  • Spiraea raizadae Panigrahi & K.M.Purohit
  • Spiraea tibetica T.T.Yu & L.T.Lu
  • Spiraea ulicina Prain
  • Spiraea xizangensis L.T.Lu

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.