Species
+

Echinops ritro L.

Southern Globethistle, globe thistle, small globe thistle

Climate known 66 photographs
Add one to my plants Sow seed

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Echinops ritro, the southern globe thistle, is a species of flowering plant in the family Asteraceae, native to southern and eastern Europe, from Spain east to Turkey, Ukraine, and Belarus, and western and central Asia east to Mongolia. The species is also sparingly naturalised in scattered locations within North America.

Text from Wikipedia, “Echinops ritro”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Echinops

Echinops is a genus of about 130 species of flowering plants in the family Asteraceae, commonly known as globe thistles. They have spiny foliage and produce blue or white spherical flower heads. They are distributed from central Asia, Mongolia and north-eastern China to the Mediterranean basin, temperate regions of Eurasia, reaching to Indian subcontinent and tropical Africa. More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Echinops”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Asteraceae
Described by
L.
Native to
Austria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary +29
Wild records
1540 in range· 918 open

At a glance

Warmest month
27°C
Jul, mean day; nights 16 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
768mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Oct 97 mm (CHELSA)
Light
10–45DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Rain rule: a winter growing season, September to January and April to May in the northern hemisphere (September to January and April to May at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 768 mm a year, wettest October at 97 mm, driest July at 32 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 10 to 45 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -5.9 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Echinops meyer Iljin; Echinops rito L.; Echinopus minor Bubani, 1899.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: a winter growing season, September to January and April to May in the northern hemisphere (September to January and April to May at the habitat, northern).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads a winter growing season: 70% of the year's rain (538 mm of 768 mm) falls in September to January and April to May, cooler than the year (wet-season mean 10.8 °C against a yearly mean of 12.8 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: March to July and October to November.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 768 mm a year, wettest October at 97 mm, driest July at 32 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

768 mm a year at the habitat, 538 mm of it September to January and April to May. Wettest month October at 97 mm, driest July at 32 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 457 mm to 1223 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 10 to 45 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 10 to 45 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 7, the highest 90th-percentile month 47).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor -5.9 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is -5.9 °C, the absolute minimum -15.2 °C, about 57 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 36.1 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 0.3 °C in January (across the envelope cells -8.6 °C to 4.6 °C), warmest day 26.7 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -5.9 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 55 to 61% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 8 °C in Jan to 27 °C in Jul; mean night from 0 °C in Jan to 16 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 768 mm of rain a year, most in Oct. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 1269 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -15.2 °C and the 99th-percentile day 36.1 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-20°-10°10°20°30°40°frost36.1° 99th-percentile day (undated)-15.2° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter050100150200mm rainDLI 10–45RH 55–61 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 1269 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C8 / -1–129 / 0–1313 / 4–1615 / 10–1819 / 15–2224 / 20–2727 / 23–3026 / 22–3022 / 17–2518 / 12–2112 / 4–169 / -1–13
Night °C0 / -9–51 / -9–53 / -5–75 / 0–99 / 5–1313 / 9–1716 / 11–2016 / 11–2013 / 8–179 / 3–134 / -3–91 / -7–6
Rain mm64 / 32–9450 / 28–7549 / 28–7771 / 40–11368 / 43–11352 / 27–8632 / 11–6847 / 21–7782 / 44–13097 / 48–15582 / 42–13974 / 39–123
DLI12 / 9–1619 / 15–2227 / 23–3134 / 31–3839 / 36–4243 / 40–4745 / 40–4739 / 35–4129 / 26–3220 / 16–2313 / 10–1710 / 7–13
RH %60 / 56–6659 / 56–6457 / 55–6257 / 54–6057 / 54–6056 / 53–5955 / 51–5856 / 53–5958 / 56–6160 / 58–6361 / 58–6661 / 57–67

Each figure is the median across the 1269 grid cells holding the 1520 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 910:3698 (44.475, 4.925). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -15.2 °C, 1st-percentile night -5.9 °C, 99th-percentile day 36.1 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 1269 distinct grid cells holding the 1520 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 910:3698 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 44.50_5.000, lapse-corrected -93 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 373 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeAustria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, France, Spain, Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Romania, Sicilia, Turkey-in-Europe, Yugoslavia, Baltic States, Krym, Central European Russia, East European Russia, South European Russia, Ukraine, Altay, West Siberia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, North Caucasus, Transcaucasus, East Aegean Is., Iran, Turkey, Xinjiang, Mongolia· introduced: Germany, Washington, New York
Kew's description“perennial” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker44.331, 5.603 · in the densest population, 842 records (55% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1540 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 918 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 7 km away. 8 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 20 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population inside the densest 2° block of the 1540 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Echinops ritroEchinops ritroEchinops ritroEchinops ritroEchinops ritroEchinops ritroEchinops ritroEchinops ritro

Photographs: (c) Michael Andresek, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) petitcrabe, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) zebedeugalinha, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Aubin NORMAND, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Mohammad Amin Ghaffari, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Thomas Dreux, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3).

Photographs: iNaturalist did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Echinops ritro, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Antifungal Activity of Thiophenes from Echinops ritro
Nikolas Fokialakis, Charles L. Cantrell, Stephen O. Duke, Alexios Léandros Skaltsounis (2006) · Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry
Antifeedant and toxicity effects of thiophenes from four Echinops species against the Formosan subterranean termite, Coptotermes formosanus
Nikolas Fokialakis, Weste L. A. Osbrink, Leonid K. Mamonov, Nadejda G. Gemejieva (2006) · Pest Management Science
Antioxidant and Hepatoprotective Potential of Echinops ritro L. Extracts on Induced Oxidative Stress In Vitro/In Vivo
Dimitrina Zheleva‐Dimitrova, Rumyana Simeonova, Magdalena Kondeva-Burdina, Yonko Savov (2023) · International Journal of Molecular Sciences
Novel Substituted Thiophenes and Sulf-Polyacetylene Ester from Echinops ritro L.
Liangbo Li, Guang-Da Xiao, Wei Xiang, Xing Yang (2019) · Molecules

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

Other Echinops 2 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zam
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not asked
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 106 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.