Species
+

Ajuga reptans L.

Ajuga, Blue Bugle, Bugle, Bugle (EN)

Climate known 76 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

Ajuga reptans is commonly known as bugle, blue bugle, bugleherb, bugleweed, carpetweed, carpet bugleweed, and common bugle, and traditionally as St. Lawrence plant. It is an herbaceous flowering plant in the mint family Lamiaceae, native to Europe. It is also a component of purple moor grass and rush pastures, a Biodiversity Action Plan habitat in the United Kingdom.

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

About the genus · Ajuga

Ajuga, also known as bugleweed, ground pine, carpet bugle, or just bugle, is a genus of flowering plants in the Ajugeae tribe of the mint family Lamiaceae. Over 60 species of annual or perennial, mostly herbaceous plants are known. They are native to Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia.

Text from Wikipedia, “Ajuga”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Lamiaceae
Described by
L.
Native to
Denmark, Great Britain, Ireland +36
Wild records
719 in range· 158 open

At a glance

Warmest month
23°C
Jul, mean day; nights 14 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
963mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Oct 92 mm (CHELSA)
Light
7–36DLI
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 (May to December in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 963 mm a year, wettest October at 92 mm, driest February at 60 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 7 to 36 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -3.1 °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 Ajuga abnormis (Rouy) Prain; Ajuga alpina Fr.; Ajuga barrelieri Ten.; Ajuga breviproles Borbás; Ajuga candolleana (Rouy) Prain and 26 more.

Cultivation

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 (685 mm of 963 mm) takes 8 months, May to December. Mean temperature moves 16.7 °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 963 mm a year, wettest October at 92 mm, driest February at 60 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

963 mm a year at the habitat, 685 mm of it May to December. Wettest month October at 92 mm, driest February at 60 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 708 mm to 1591 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 36 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 7 to 36 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 -3.1 °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 -3.1 °C, the absolute minimum -12.1 °C, about 28 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 36.6 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -0.9 °C in January (across the envelope cells -6.2 °C to 2.9 °C), warmest day 23.1 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -3.1 °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 66% 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 23 °C in Jul; mean night from -1 °C in Jan to 14 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 963 mm of rain a year, most in Oct. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 602 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -12.1 °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.-20°-10°10°20°30°40°frost36.6° 99th-percentile day (undated)-12.1° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter050100150200mm rainDLI 7–36RH 59–66 %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 / 1–96 / 3–1110 / 7–1414 / 11–1718 / 15–2121 / 18–2523 / 21–2823 / 20–2819 / 17–2415 / 13–199 / 7–146 / 2–10
Night °C-1 / -6–3-1 / -5–32 / -2–55 / 2–89 / 6–1212 / 10–1614 / 12–1814 / 12–1911 / 9–158 / 5–114 / -1–70 / -5–4
Rain mm74 / 35–12560 / 35–10570 / 46–12174 / 45–12785 / 58–14784 / 56–15683 / 40–16083 / 50–15788 / 63–14592 / 63–16087 / 56–15983 / 50–147
DLI9 / 5–1214 / 9–1821 / 16–2630 / 26–3334 / 32–3836 / 33–4236 / 32–4331 / 27–3623 / 18–2815 / 11–199 / 6–137 / 4–10
RH %65 / 60–6962 / 59–6660 / 57–6459 / 57–6259 / 57–6260 / 57–6359 / 55–6360 / 56–6362 / 58–6464 / 61–6665 / 61–6966 / 60–70

Each figure is the median across the 602 grid cells holding the 707 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 894:3835 (45.275, 11.775). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -12.1 °C, 1st-percentile night -3.1 °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 602 distinct grid cells holding the 707 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 894:3835 (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 45.50_11.875, lapse-corrected -71 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 8 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, Great Britain, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Hungary, Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, France, Portugal, 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, Algeria, Tunisia, North Caucasus, Transcaucasus, Iran, Turkey· introduced: Irkutsk, West Siberia, Sakhalin, Tasmania, New Zealand North, New Zealand South, British Columbia, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Québec, Oregon, Washington, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Indiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode I., Vermont, West Virginia, Utah, Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, District of Columbia, Venezuela
Kew's description“perennial” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker45.818, 9.323 · in the densest population, 227 records (32% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 719 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 158 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 257 km away. 119 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 12 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 719 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

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Photographs: (c) Alex Zorach, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3); (c) Codrin Bucur, some rights reserved (CC BY) (4); (c) Sandy Wolkenberg, some rights reserved (CC BY).

Photographs: iNaturalist and Wikimedia Commons 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 Ajuga reptans, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Anthocyanidins and anthocyanins: colored pigments as food, pharmaceutical ingredients, and the potential health benefits
Hock Eng Khoo, Azrina Azlan, Sou Teng Tang, See Meng Lim (2017) · Food & Nutrition Research
Source-to-sink transport of sugar and regulation by environmental factors
Rémi Lemoine, Sylvain La Camera, Rossitza Atanassova, Fabienne Dédaldéchamp (2013) · Frontiers in Plant Science
Galactinol and Raffinose Constitute a Novel Function to Protect Plants from Oxidative Damage
Ayako Nishizawa‐Yokoi, Yukinori Yabuta, Shigeru Shigeoka (2008) · PLANT PHYSIOLOGY
Plant sugars are crucial players in the oxidative challenge during abiotic stress: extending the traditional concept
Els Keunen, Darin Peshev, Jaco Vangronsveld, Wim Van den Ende (2013) · Plant Cell & Environment
Composition of root‐colonizing arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal communities in different ecosystems around the globe
Maarja Öpik, Mari Moora, Jaan Liira, Martin Zobel (2006) · Journal of Ecology
Investigation of thermal benefits of rooftop garden in the tropical environment
Nyuk Hien Wong, Yu Chen, Chui Leng Ong, Angelia Sia (2002) · Building and Environment
Sucrose, sucrosyl oligosaccharides, and oxidative stress: scavenging and salvaging?
Wim Van den Ende, Ravi Valluru (2008) · Journal of Experimental Botany
Food colorants: Challenges, opportunities and current desires of agro-industries to ensure consumer expectations and regulatory practices
Natália Martins, Custódio Lobo Roriz, Patrícia Morales, Lillian Barros (2016) · Trends in Food Science & Technology
Anthocyanins and Human Health: An In Vitro Investigative Approach
Mary Ann Lila (2004) · BioMed Research International
Selectivity and functional diversity in arbuscular mycorrhizas of co‐occurring fungi and plants from a temperate deciduous woodland
Thorunn Helgason, James Merryweather, Jean Denison, Paul Wilson (2002) · Journal of Ecology
Significance of galactinol and raffinose family oligosaccharide synthesis in plants
Sonali Sengupta, Sritama Mukherjee, Papri Basak, Arun Lahiri Majumder (2015) · Frontiers in Plant Science
Multifunctional fructans and raffinose family oligosaccharides
Wim Van den Ende (2013) · Frontiers in Plant Science

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.

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 2026-09-20 (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); that build: carried 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 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried 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 answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
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 14 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.