Veronica agrestisL.

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WFO wfo-0000419706 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Veronica agrestis, photographed by Stephen James McWilliam
fig. a Stephen James McWilliam, CC0 1.0 / 2021-11-02 / obs. 167093869

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 40 botanical countries

Regions where Veronica agrestis is native: Algeria, Azores, Canary Is., Libya, Madeira, Morocco, Tunisia, Palestine, Albania, Austria, Baltic States, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Central European Russia, Corse, Czechia-Slovakia, Denmark, East European Russia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Kriti, Netherlands, Northwest European Russia, Norway, NW. Balkan Pen., Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sardegna, Sicilia, South European Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine AlgeriaLibyaMoroccoTunisiaPalestineAlbaniaAustriaBaltic StatesBelarusBelgiumBulgariaCentral European RussiaCorseCzechia-SlovakiaDenmarkEast European RussiaFinlandFranceGermanyGreeceHungaryItalyKritiNetherlandsNorthwest European RussiaNorwayNW. Balkan Pen.PolandPortugalRomaniaSiciliaSouth European RussiaSpainSwedenSwitzerlandUkraine AzoresCanary Is.MadeiraSardegna
Native distribution of Veronica agrestis, 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
Baltic States BLT
Belarus BLR
Belgium BGM
Bulgaria BUL
Central European Russia RUC
Corse COR
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
Denmark DEN
East European Russia RUE
Finland FIN
France FRA
Germany GER
Greece GRC
Hungary HUN
Italy ITA
Kriti KRI
Netherlands NET
Northwest European Russia RUW
Norway NOR
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Poland POL
Portugal POR
Romania ROM
Sardegna SAR
Sicilia SIC
South European Russia RUS
Spain SPA
Sweden SWE
Switzerland SWI
Ukraine UKR
Algeria ALG AFRICA
Azores AZO
Canary Is. CNY
Libya LBY
Madeira MDR
Morocco MOR
Tunisia TUN
Palestine PAL ASIA-TEMPERATE

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 105 in flower of 135 examined

Proportion of examined Veronica agrestis in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 1 4 too few examined
Feb 13 19 68% 46% to 85%
Mar 32 35 91% 78% to 97%
Apr 13 14 93% 69% to 99%
May 4 5 80% 38% to 96%
Jun 2 2 too few examined
Jul 12 13 92% 67% to 99%
Aug 7 11 64% 35% to 85%
Sep 3 3 too few examined
Oct 8 11 73% 43% to 90%
Nov 3 6 50% 19% to 81%
Dec 7 12 58% 32% to 81%

Peak flowering in Apr. Each bar is the share of Veronica agrestis 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. 105 of 135 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 3 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.

Where it actually grows measured, from 557 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -8.0 °C 0.2 °C 4.6 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 18.7 °C 21.8 °C 24.9 °C
Annual rainfall 615 mm 759 mm 1,478 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 101 mm 142 mm 268 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 557 research-grade observations of Veronica agrestis 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 24 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.

  • Cardia agrestis (L.) Dulac
  • Cochlidiosperma agreste (L.) Opiz
  • Pocilla agrestis (L.) Fourr.
  • Veronica agrestis subsp. pulchella (Wallr.) Gaudin
  • Veronica agrestis subsp. vulgaris Gaudin
  • Veronica agrestis var. byzantiaca Sm.
  • Veronica agrestis var. calycina Fr. ex Hartm.
  • Veronica agrestis var. denticulata Chaub. ex K.Koch
  • Veronica agrestis var. pulchella Wallr.
  • Veronica agrestis var. typica Ewart
  • Veronica agrestis var. versicolor (Drejer) Mathieu
  • Veronica alba Mazziari
  • Veronica arvensis var. glandulosa Wimm. & Grab.
  • Veronica calycida Fr. ex Rchb.
  • Veronica friesiana Knaf
  • Veronica friesii Chaub.
  • Veronica longe-pedunculata Gilib.
  • Veronica obscura Dumort.
  • Veronica opaca var. pulchella Rouy
  • Veronica polita var. agrestis (L.) Vayr.
  • Veronica polita var. dentata Sennen & Pau
  • Veronica pulchella Bastard
  • Veronica versicolor Drejer
  • Veronica versicolor var. calycida Fr.

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.