Thesium refractumC.A.Mey.

WFO wfo-0000455062 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Thesium refractum, photographed by Alexander Dubynin
fig. a Alexander Dubynin, CC BY 4.0 / 2020-07-25 / obs. 109073949
Thesium refractum, photographed by Alexander Dubynin
fig. b Alexander Dubynin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 107338907
Thesium refractum, photographed by Alexander Dubynin
fig. c Alexander Dubynin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 106627873
Thesium refractum, photographed by Oleg Kosterin
fig. d Oleg Kosterin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 81100923
Thesium refractum, photographed by Alexander Dubynin
fig. e Alexander Dubynin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 78899818
Thesium refractum, photographed by Nina Filippova
fig. f Nina Filippova, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 130076178
Thesium refractum, photographed by Nina Filippova
fig. g Nina Filippova, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 130075835
Thesium refractum, photographed by Oleg Kosterin
fig. h Oleg Kosterin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 75682062

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 27 botanical countries

Regions where Thesium refractum is native: Altay, Amur, Buryatiya, China North-Central, China South-Central, China Southeast, Chita, Inner Mongolia, Irkutsk, Japan, Kazakhstan, Khabarovsk, Kirgizstan, Korea, Krasnoyarsk, Kuril Is., Manchuria, Mongolia, Primorye, Qinghai, Sakhalin, Tibet, Tuva, West Siberia, Xinjiang, Yakutiya, East European Russia AltayAmurBuryatiyaChina North-CentralChina South-CentralChina SoutheastChitaInner MongoliaIrkutskJapanKazakhstanKhabarovskKirgizstanKrasnoyarskManchuriaMongoliaPrimoryeQinghaiSakhalinTibetTuvaWest SiberiaXinjiangYakutiyaEast European Russia Korea
Native distribution of Thesium refractum, 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
China South-Central CHC
China Southeast CHS
Chita CTA
Inner Mongolia CHI
Irkutsk IRK
Japan JAP
Kazakhstan KAZ
Khabarovsk KHA
Kirgizstan KGZ
Korea KOR
Krasnoyarsk KRA
Kuril Is. KUR
Manchuria CHM
Mongolia MON
Primorye PRM
Qinghai CHQ
Sakhalin SAK
Tibet CHT
Tuva TVA
West Siberia WSB
Xinjiang CHX
Yakutiya YAK
East European Russia RUE EUROPE

Not drawn on the map: Kuril Is.. 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.

Where it actually grows measured, from 206 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -32.4 °C -19.6 °C -15.8 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 16.5 °C 23.2 °C 25.0 °C
Annual rainfall 308 mm 499 mm 1,097 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 12 mm 54 mm 159 mm

It is found where winters are arctic. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 206 research-grade observations of Thesium refractum 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 1 synonym

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.

  • Linosyris refracta Kuntze

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.