Veronica spicataL.

Spiked Speedwellspiked speedwell

WFO wfo-0000425311 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Veronica spicata, photographed by Grzegorz Grzejszczak
fig. a Grzegorz Grzejszczak, CC BY-SA 4.0 / 2021-11-13 / obs. 190671807
Veronica spicata, photographed by Pavel Kacl
fig. b Pavel Kacl, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 165325038
Veronica spicata, photographed by Силаева Татьяна Борисовна
fig. c Силаева Татьяна Борисовна, CC0 1.0 / obs. 163323640
Veronica spicata, photographed by Evgenii Iaitskii
fig. d Evgenii Iaitskii, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 173593467
Veronica spicata, photographed by Franco Folini
fig. e Franco Folini, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 152393935
Veronica spicata, photographed by Нурхайдарова Татьяна
fig. f Нурхайдарова Татьяна, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 150893199
Veronica spicata, photographed by Michael Knapp
fig. g Michael Knapp, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 150731494
Veronica spicata, photographed by Jais Knudsen
fig. h Jais Knudsen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 149142551

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 35 botanical countries

Regions where Veronica spicata is native: Altay, Kazakhstan, Krasnoyarsk, Mongolia, North Caucasus, West Siberia, Xinjiang, Albania, Austria, Baltic States, Belarus, Bulgaria, Central European Russia, Czechia-Slovakia, Denmark, East European Russia, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, Krym, North European Russia, Northwest European Russia, Norway, NW. Balkan Pen., Poland, Romania, South European Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Türkiye-in-Europe, Ukraine AltayKazakhstanKrasnoyarskMongoliaNorth CaucasusWest SiberiaXinjiangAlbaniaAustriaBaltic StatesBelarusBulgariaCentral European RussiaCzechia-SlovakiaDenmarkEast European RussiaFinlandFranceGermanyHungaryItalyKrymNorth European RussiaNorthwest European RussiaNorwayNW. Balkan Pen.PolandRomaniaSouth European RussiaSpainSwedenSwitzerlandTürkiye-in-EuropeUkraine
Native distribution of Veronica spicata, 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
Albania ALB EUROPE
Austria AUT
Baltic States BLT
Belarus BLR
Bulgaria BUL
Central European Russia RUC
Czechia-Slovakia CZE
Denmark DEN
East European Russia RUE
Finland FIN
France FRA
Germany GER
Great Britain GRB
Hungary HUN
Italy ITA
Krym KRY
North European Russia RUN
Northwest European Russia RUW
Norway NOR
NW. Balkan Pen. YUG
Poland POL
Romania ROM
South European Russia RUS
Spain SPA
Sweden SWE
Switzerland SWI
Türkiye-in-Europe TUE
Ukraine UKR
Altay ALT ASIA-TEMPERATE
Kazakhstan KAZ
Krasnoyarsk KRA
Mongolia MON
North Caucasus NCS
West Siberia WSB
Xinjiang CHX

Not drawn on the map: Great Britain. 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.

Flowering 637 in flower of 691 examined

Peak flowering in Jul. Each bar is the share of Veronica spicata 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. 637 of 691 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 4 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 1,991 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -19.4 °C -11.0 °C -1.3 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 18.8 °C 23.5 °C 26.1 °C
Annual rainfall 418 mm 576 mm 990 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 55 mm 97 mm 176 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 1,991 research-grade observations of Veronica spicata 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 100 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 spicata (L.) Dulac
  • Eustachya oppositifolia Raf.
  • Eustaxia oppositifolia Raf.
  • Hedystachys spicata (L.) Fourr.
  • Pseudolysimachion bashkiriense (Klokov ex Tzvelev) Tzvelev
  • Pseudolysimachion borysthenicum (Ostapko) Ostapko
  • Pseudolysimachion euxinum (Turrill) Holub
  • Pseudolysimachion grynianum (Klokov) Ostapko
  • Pseudolysimachion klokovii (Tzvelev) Holub
  • Pseudolysimachion maeoticum (Klokov) Holub
  • Pseudolysimachion paczoskianum (Klokov) Ostapko
  • Pseudolysimachion petschoricum (Tzvelev) Tzvelev
  • Pseudolysimachion spicatum (L.) Opiz
  • Pseudolysimachion spicatum subsp. bashkiriense (Klokov ex Tzvelev) Soják
  • Pseudolysimachion spicatum subsp. fischeri Trávn.
  • Pseudolysimachion spicatum subsp. hybridum Holub
  • Pseudolysimachion spicatum subsp. klokovii (Tzvelev) Soják
  • Pseudolysimachion spicatum subsp. lanisepalum Trávn.
  • Pseudolysimachion spicatum subsp. maeoticum (Klokov) Soják
  • Pseudolysimachion spicatum subsp. petschoricum (Tzvelev) Soják
  • Pseudolysimachion spicatum subsp. viscosulum (Klokov) Trávn.
  • Pseudolysimachion spicatum var. pseudoorchideum (Pacz.) Tzvelev
  • Pseudolysimachion spicatum var. pseudorchideum (Pacz.) Tzvelev
  • Pseudolysimachion tzvelevii Ostapko

and 76 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.