Spiraea chamaedryfoliaL.

Germander meadowsweet

WFO wfo-0001006197 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Spiraea chamaedryfolia, photographed by Nina Filippova
fig. a Nina Filippova, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-09-04 / obs. 157754482
Spiraea chamaedryfolia, photographed by Nina Filippova
fig. b Nina Filippova, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 157749100
Spiraea chamaedryfolia, photographed by Nina Filippova
fig. c Nina Filippova, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 153678148
Spiraea chamaedryfolia, photographed by Nina Filippova
fig. d Nina Filippova, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 129665276
Spiraea chamaedryfolia, photographed by Alexander Dubynin
fig. e Alexander Dubynin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 98208329
Spiraea chamaedryfolia, photographed by Alexander Dubynin
fig. f Alexander Dubynin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 98208118
Spiraea chamaedryfolia, photographed by Nina Filippova
fig. g Nina Filippova, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 130080803
Spiraea chamaedryfolia, photographed by xulescu_g
fig. h xulescu_g, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 205383988

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 25 botanical countries

Regions where Spiraea chamaedryfolia is native: Altay, Amur, Buryatiya, China North-Central, Inner Mongolia, Irkutsk, Japan, Kazakhstan, Khabarovsk, Kirgizstan, Korea, Krasnoyarsk, Manchuria, Mongolia, Primorye, Tuva, Uzbekistan, West Siberia, Xinjiang, Yakutiya, Austria, Bulgaria, Greece, NW. Balkan Pen., Romania AltayAmurBuryatiyaChina North-CentralInner MongoliaIrkutskJapanKazakhstanKhabarovskKirgizstanKrasnoyarskManchuriaMongoliaPrimoryeTuvaUzbekistanWest SiberiaXinjiangYakutiyaAustriaBulgariaGreeceNW. Balkan Pen.Romania Korea
Native distribution of Spiraea chamaedryfolia, 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
Altay ALT ASIA-TEMPERATE
Amur AMU
Buryatiya BRY
China North-Central CHN
Inner Mongolia CHI
Irkutsk IRK
Japan JAP
Kazakhstan KAZ
Khabarovsk KHA
Kirgizstan KGZ
Korea KOR
Krasnoyarsk KRA
Manchuria CHM
Mongolia MON
Primorye PRM
Tuva TVA
Uzbekistan UZB
West Siberia WSB
Xinjiang CHX
Yakutiya YAK
Austria AUT EUROPE
Bulgaria BUL
Greece GRC
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Romania ROM

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 30 in flower of 45 examined

Peak flowering in May. Each bar is the share of Spiraea chamaedryfolia 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. 30 of 45 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 10 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.

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.

  • Spiraea alnifolia Zabel
  • Spiraea aubifolia Zabel
  • Spiraea banatica Janka
  • Spiraea banatica Janka ex Just
  • Spiraea belgica Dumort.
  • Spiraea chamaedrifolia Pall.
  • Spiraea chamaedrifolia var. vulgaris Cambess.
  • Spiraea chamaedryfolia subsp. flexuosa (Fisch. ex Cambess.) Nedol.
  • Spiraea chamaedryfolia subsp. ulmifolia (Scop.) J.Duvign.
  • Spiraea chamaedryfolia subsp. ussuriensis (Pojark.) Nedol.
  • Spiraea chamaedryfolia var. crataegifolia Zabel
  • Spiraea chamaedryfolia var. flexuosa (Fisch. ex Cambess.) Maxim.
  • Spiraea chamaedryfolia var. pilosa (Nakai) H.Hara
  • Spiraea chamaedryfolia var. pubescens H.Hara
  • Spiraea chamaedryfolia var. stenophylla Zabel
  • Spiraea chamaedryfolia var. subracemosa Ser.
  • Spiraea chamaedryfolia var. transiens Zabel
  • Spiraea chamaedryfolia var. typica Fiori
  • Spiraea chamaedryfolia var. ulmifolia (Scop.) Maxim.
  • Spiraea chamaedryfolia var. vulgaris Cambess.
  • Spiraea flexuosa Fisch. ex Cambess.
  • Spiraea flexuosa var. latifolia Fisch. ex Maxim.
  • Spiraea flexuosa var. stenophylla (Zabel) C.K.Schneid.
  • Spiraea flexuosa var. typica C.K.Schneid.

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.
  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.