Species
+

Tanacetum vulgare L.

Common Tansy, Garden Tansy, Golden-buttons

Climate known 41 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

Tansy is a perennial, herbaceous flowering plant in the genus Tanacetum in the family Asteraceae, native to temperate Europe and Asia. It has been introduced to other parts of the world, including Australia and North and South America, and in some areas has become invasive. It is also known as common tansy, bitter buttons, cow bitter, or golden buttons. The Latin word vulgare means "common".

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

About the genus · Tanacetum

Tanacetum is a genus of about 160 species of flowering plants in the aster family, Asteraceae, native to many regions of the Northern Hemisphere. They are known commonly as tansies. The name tansy can refer specifically to Tanacetum vulgare, which may be called the common tansy or garden tansy for clarity. More on Wikipedia ›

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

Family
Asteraceae
Described by
L.
Native to
Denmark, Finland, Great Britain +56
Wild records
655 in range· 117 open

At a glance

Warmest month
22°C
Jul, mean day; nights 14 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
837mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Jul 79 mm (CHELSA)
Light
4–33DLI
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: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (June to January in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 837 mm a year, wettest July at 79 mm, driest April at 47 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 4 to 33 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -9.9 °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 Tanacetum vulgare f. vulgare; Tanacetum vulgare subsp. boreale (Fisch. ex DC.) A, 1975; Tanacetum vulgare subsp. boreale (Fisch. ex DC.) Kuvaev; Tanacetum vulgare var. crispum DC.; Tanacetum vulgare var. vulgare.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (June to January 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 (602 mm of 837 mm) takes 8 months, June to January. Mean temperature moves 15.8 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: December to July.

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 837 mm a year, wettest July at 79 mm, driest April at 47 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

837 mm a year at the habitat, 602 mm of it June to January. Wettest month July at 79 mm, driest April at 47 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 638 mm to 939 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: 4 to 33 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 4 to 33 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 2, the highest 90th-percentile month 36).

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 -9.9 °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 -9.9 °C, the absolute minimum -20.1 °C, about 70 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 29.0 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -0.2 °C in February (across the envelope cells -8.3 °C to 1.1 °C), warmest day 22.1 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -9.9 °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: 59 to 69% 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 5 °C in Jan to 22 °C in Jul; mean night from -0 °C in Feb to 14 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Jan to Mar, is the three months around the coldest night. 837 mm of rain a year, most in Jul. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 602 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -20.1 °C and the 99th-percentile day 29.0 °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°frost29.0° 99th-percentile day (undated)-20.1° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0255075100mm rainDLI 4–33RH 59–69 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 602 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 °C5 / -3–66 / -3–79 / 2–1013 / 9–1417 / 15–1820 / 18–2122 / 20–2322 / 20–2318 / 15–1914 / 9–159 / 3–105 / -1–6
Night °C-0 / -8–1-0 / -8–12 / -5–34 / 1–59 / 7–911 / 11–1214 / 13–1514 / 13–1511 / 9–128 / 4–94 / -2–51 / -6–2
Rain mm73 / 43–8457 / 34–6566 / 37–7747 / 35–5865 / 49–7973 / 62–8679 / 64–9176 / 63–9273 / 57–8975 / 54–9475 / 52–9178 / 51–88
DLI5 / 3–610 / 8–1117 / 16–1827 / 26–2832 / 32–3433 / 33–3633 / 32–3527 / 26–3019 / 17–2111 / 8–136 / 4–74 / 2–5
RH %68 / 66–7165 / 64–6963 / 61–6560 / 58–6159 / 57–6160 / 58–6260 / 58–6261 / 58–6263 / 61–6465 / 64–6668 / 66–7069 / 67–71

Each figure is the median across the 602 grid cells holding the 655 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 760:3740 (51.975, 7.025). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -20.1 °C, 1st-percentile night -9.9 °C, 99th-percentile day 29.0 °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 602 distinct grid cells holding the 655 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 760:3740 (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 52.00_6.875, lapse-corrected +21 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 65 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.
NativeDenmark, Finland, Great Britain, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Hungary, Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, Corse, France, Spain, Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Romania, Sicilia, Turkey-in-Europe, Yugoslavia, Belarus, Baltic States, Krym, Central European Russia, East European Russia, North European Russia, South European Russia, Northwest European Russia, Ukraine, Altay, Buryatiya, Chita, Irkutsk, Krasnoyarsk, Tuva, West Siberia, Yakutskiya, Amur, Kamchatka, Khabarovsk, Kuril Is., Magadan, Primorye, Sakhalin, Kazakhstan, Kirgizistan, North Caucasus, Transcaucasus, Turkey, Inner Mongolia, Manchuria, Xinjiang, Mongolia, Japan, Korea· introduced: Føroyar, Iceland, Ireland, Portugal, Mauritius, Réunion, New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Tasmania, Victoria, Cook Is., Tubuai Is., Alaska, Northwest Territories, Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Labrador, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward I., Québec, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, Wyoming, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode I., Vermont, West Virginia, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Panama, Trinidad-Tobago, Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil West-Central, Brazil Northeast, Brazil Southeast, Brazil North, Brazil South, Paraguay, Uruguay
Kew's description“perennial or rhizomatous geophyte” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker51.296, 4.333 · in the densest population, 242 records (37% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 655 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 117 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 513 km away. 91 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population of the 655 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Tanacetum vulgareTanacetum vulgareTanacetum vulgareTanacetum vulgareTanacetum vulgareTanacetum vulgareTanacetum vulgareTanacetum vulgare

Photographs: (c) Dmitriy Bochkov, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) P Holroyd, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) lazarus, some rights reserved (CC BY); no rights reserved · CC0; (c) tetyanakuchma, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Leaf H, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2).

Photographs: iNaturalist and GBIF media 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 Tanacetum vulgare, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Screening of some plants used in the Brazilian folk medicine for the treatment of infectious diseases
Fabíola Holetz, Greisiele Lorena Pessini, Neviton Rogério Sanches, Diógenes Aparı́cio Garcia Cortez (2002) · Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz
Acaricidal Properties of Artemisia absinthium and Tanacetum vulgare (Asteraceae) Essential Oils Obtained by Three Methods of Extraction
H. Chiasson, André Bélanger, N. J. Bostanian, C. Vincent (2001) · Journal of Economic Entomology
Diuretic activity of the aqueous extracts of Carum carvi and Tanacetum vulgare in normal rats
Sanaa Lahlou, Adil Tahraoui, Zafar H. Israili, Badiaâ Lyoussi (2006) · Journal of Ethnopharmacology
Variation in volatile compounds from tansy (Tanacetum vulgare L.) related to genetic and morphological differences of genotypes
Marjo Keskitalo, Eija Pehu, James E. Simon (2001) · Biochemical Systematics and Ecology
Anti-Inflammatory, Antioxidant, Antibiotic, and Cytotoxic Activities of Tanacetum vulgare L. Essential Oil and Its Constituents
Héloïse Côté, Marie-Anne Boucher, André Pichette, Jean Legault (2017) · Medicines
Competition for mutualists in an ant–homopteran interaction mediated by hierarchies of ant attendance
Melanie K. Fischer, Klaus H. Hoffmann, Wolfgang Völkl (2001) · Oikos
Anti-inflammatory Effects of South American Tanacetum vulgare
Guillermo Schinella, Rosa M. Giner, Marı́a del Carmen Recio, Perla M. de Buschiazzo (1998) · Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmacology
Immunomodulatory activity of acidic polysaccharides isolated from Tanacetum vulgare L.
Gary Xie, Igor A. Schepetkin, Mark T. Quinn (2007) · International Immunopharmacology
Antibacterial and antioxidant activity of essential oils and extracts from costmary ( Tanacetum balsamita L.) and tansy ( Tanacetum vulgare L.)
Katarzyna Bączek, Olga Kosakowska, Jarosław L. Przybył, Ewelina Pióro‐Jabrucka (2017) · Industrial Crops and Products
Plant Essential Oils as Arrestants and Repellents for Neonate Larvae of the Codling Moth (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae)
Peter J. Landolt, Richard W. Hofstetter, Lisa L. Biddick (1999) · Environmental Entomology
Effects of medicinal plant extracts on growth of Leishmania (L.) amazonensis and Trypanosoma cruzi
Patrícia Shima Luize, Tatiana Shioji Tiuman, Luís Gustavo Morello, Paloma Korehiza Maza (2005) · Revista Brasileira De Ciencias Farmaceuticas

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 Tanacetum 1 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence search API
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive)
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media did not answercarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: api.gbif.org not asked: offline re-derivation
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; 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 12 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.