Species
+

Paeonia tenuifolia L.

Fern-leaf Peony

Climate known 68 photographs Temperate garden plant
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

Paeonia tenuifolia is a herbaceous species of peony that is called the steppe peony or the fern leaf peony. It is native to the Caucasus Mountains, with large fields found in Vashlivani National Park in Georgia and the Black Sea coast of Ukraine, spreading westward into Bulgaria, Romania and Serbia and eastward to northwestern Kazakhstan. It was described by Linnaeus in 1759. The leaves are finely divided into almost thread-like segments and grow close together on the stems. More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Paeonia tenuifolia”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

Family
Paeoniaceae
Described by
L.
Native to
Bulgaria, Romania, Yugoslavia +6
Wild records
1209 in range· 307 open

At a glance

Warmest month
26°C
Jul, mean day; nights 17 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
593mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Jun 69 mm (CHELSA)
Light
7–39DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Grouped as a temperate garden plant by the genus Paeonia, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (May to December in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 593 mm a year, wettest June at 69 mm, driest March at 37 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 7 to 39 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -12.5 °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 Paeonia biebersteinia Rupr.; Paeonia carthalinica Ketsk.; Paeonia hybrida Pall.; Paeonia laciniata Pall.; Paeonia lithophila Kotov and 12 more.

Cultivation

Grouped as a temperate garden plant by the genus Paeonia, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). The table holds no figure for this group, which spans too much for one minimum; the cold floor is the habitat's alone, and no prose comes from the table.

Its year Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (May to December in the northern hemisphere).

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

The rain rule reads no season: 70% of the year's rain (428 mm of 593 mm) takes 8 months, May to December. Mean temperature moves 23.7 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: November to June.

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 593 mm a year, wettest June at 69 mm, driest March at 37 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

593 mm a year at the habitat, 428 mm of it May to December. Wettest month June at 69 mm, driest March at 37 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 487 mm to 898 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: 7 to 39 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 7 to 39 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 4, the highest 90th-percentile month 43).

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 -12.5 °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 -12.5 °C, the absolute minimum -23.4 °C, about 111 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 36.6 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -5.5 °C in February (across the envelope cells -11.0 °C to -1.0 °C), warmest day 26.1 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -12.5 °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 68% 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 2 °C in Jan to 26 °C in Jul; mean night from -6 °C in Feb to 17 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Jan to Mar, is the three months around the coldest night. 593 mm of rain a year, most in Jun. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 341 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -23.4 °C and the 99th-percentile day 36.6 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-30°-20°-10°10°20°30°40°frost36.6° 99th-percentile day (undated)-23.4° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0255075100125mm rainDLI 7–39RH 55–68 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 341 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 °C2 / -5–42 / -5–66 / 1–913 / 10–1520 / 16–2124 / 20–2526 / 23–2826 / 23–2820 / 17–2214 / 10–177 / 2–103 / -3–6
Night °C-5 / -10–-1-6 / -11–-1-2 / -6–24 / 2–710 / 8–1214 / 12–1717 / 15–1916 / 14–1912 / 9–156 / 4–101 / -3–5-4 / -9–1
Rain mm45 / 27–8339 / 24–7537 / 30–7144 / 31–6149 / 38–7769 / 48–10263 / 43–7448 / 37–7853 / 43–7047 / 38–6750 / 39–8649 / 33–103
DLI9 / 6–1114 / 11–1722 / 20–2430 / 28–3336 / 35–4039 / 37–4339 / 37–4335 / 31–3826 / 21–2917 / 12–1910 / 6–127 / 4–9
RH %68 / 64–7366 / 62–7163 / 61–6558 / 56–6157 / 53–6158 / 54–6056 / 54–5855 / 53–5858 / 56–6061 / 60–6365 / 63–6868 / 64–71

Each figure is the median across the 341 grid cells holding the 1134 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 931:4495 (43.425, 44.775). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -23.4 °C, 1st-percentile night -12.5 °C, 99th-percentile day 36.6 °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 341 distinct grid cells holding the 1134 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 931:4495 (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 43.50_45.000, lapse-corrected +83 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 384 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.
NativeBulgaria, Romania, Yugoslavia, Krym, East European Russia, South European Russia, Altay, North Caucasus, Transcaucasus
Kew's description“perennial” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker44.919, 34.482 · in the densest population, 570 records (47% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1209 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 307 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 38 km away. 186 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 75 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 of the 1209 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Paeonia tenuifoliaPaeonia tenuifoliaPaeonia tenuifoliaPaeonia tenuifoliaPaeonia tenuifoliaPaeonia tenuifoliaPaeonia tenuifoliaPaeonia tenuifolia

Photographs: (c) Елена Патерикина, some rights reserved (CC BY) (6); no rights reserved · CC0 (2).

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 Paeonia tenuifolia, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Identification and Characterization of Anthocyanins by High-performance Liquid Chromatography–Electrospray Ionization–Mass Spectrometry in Herbaceous Peony Species
Ni Jia, Qingyan Shu, Danhua Wang, Liang‐Sheng Wang (2008) · Journal of the American Society for Horticultural Science
Chemical Profile and Skin-Beneficial Activities of the Petal Extracts of Paeonia tenuifolia L. from Serbia
Natalija Čutović, Tatjana Marković, Marina Kostić, Uroš Gašić (2022) · Pharmaceuticals
GC-MS Analysis and Anti-Microbial Activity of Acidic Fractions Obtained from Paeonia peregrina and Paeonia tenuifolia Roots
Antoaneta Ivanova, Ivajla Delcheva, Iva Tsvetkova, Atanas Kujumgiev (2002) · Zeitschrift für Naturforschung C
Nouveaux flavonosides de Paeonia tenuifolia L
Dus̀ica Stošić, M. S. Gorunovic, Alexios‐Léandros Skaltsounis, François Tillequin (1988) · Helvetica Chimica Acta
Post-fire restoration of plant communities with Paeonia tenuifolia in the Khvalynsky National Park (Russia)
National park «Khvalynsky», Guzalya Suleymanova, Vladimir Alexandrovich Boldyrev, Victor A. Savinov (2019) · Nature Conservation Research
Phytochemical Analysis, Biological Activities, and Molecular Docking Studies of Root Extracts from Paeonia Species in Serbia
Petar Batinić, Aleksandra Jovanović, Dejan Stojković, Gökhan Zengin (2024) · Pharmaceuticals

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 Paeonia 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: filled 2026-09-20
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 59 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.