Species
+

Betonica officinalis L.

Betony, Common betony, European hedge-nettle, Ortiga bona

Climate known 71 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

Betonica officinalis, common name betony is a species of flowering plant in the mint family Lamiaceae, native to Europe, western Asia, and northern Africa. Other vernacular names include wood betony, common hedgenettle, purple betony, bishopwort, or bishop's wort. Its 'Hummelo' cultivar has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.

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

About the genus · Betonica

Betonica is a genus of the plants in the family Lamiaceae.

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

Family
Lamiaceae
Described by
L.
Native to
Denmark, Great Britain, Ireland +35
Wild records
753 in range· 245 open

At a glance

Warmest month
23°C
Jul, mean day; nights 14 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
837mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Jul 84 mm (CHELSA)
Light
5–35DLI
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 837 mm a year, wettest July at 84 mm, driest February at 50 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 5 to 35 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -12.4 °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 Betonica brachystachys Jord. & Fourr., 1868; Betonica danica Lange, 1888; Betonica officinalis subsp. velebetica (A.Kern.) Nyman; Betonica officinalis var. glabrata K.Koch; Betonica officinalis var. stricta K.Koch and 8 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 (612 mm of 837 mm) takes 8 months, May to December. Mean temperature moves 19.4 °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 837 mm a year, wettest July at 84 mm, driest February at 50 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

837 mm a year at the habitat, 612 mm of it May to December. Wettest month July at 84 mm, driest February at 50 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 593 mm to 1527 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: 5 to 35 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 5 to 35 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 39).

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 -12.4 °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 -12.4 °C, the absolute minimum -26.0 °C, about 101 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 33.4 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -4.2 °C in January (across the envelope cells -10.2 °C to 1.9 °C), warmest day 22.8 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -12.4 °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: 58 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 3 °C in Jan to 23 °C in Jul; mean night from -4 °C in Jan to 14 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, 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 615 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -26.0 °C and the 99th-percentile day 33.4 °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°frost33.4° 99th-percentile day (undated)-26.0° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter050100150200mm rainDLI 5–35RH 58–68 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 615 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 °C3 / -5–74 / -5–88 / 1–1212 / 10–1517 / 15–2021 / 17–2323 / 20–2522 / 19–2518 / 15–2113 / 8–167 / 0–113 / -4–8
Night °C-4 / -10–2-4 / -11–2-0 / -6–33 / 0–68 / 6–1012 / 9–1414 / 12–1613 / 12–1610 / 8–136 / 3–91 / -4–5-3 / -9–3
Rain mm62 / 33–10750 / 32–9357 / 33–11256 / 36–11673 / 47–13883 / 59–15584 / 56–16579 / 55–16474 / 54–14075 / 42–13271 / 45–13673 / 42–129
DLI6 / 4–1111 / 8–1720 / 17–2528 / 25–3234 / 32–3635 / 33–3835 / 32–3930 / 26–3321 / 17–2613 / 9–187 / 4–115 / 2–9
RH %67 / 61–7364 / 60–7062 / 58–6558 / 57–6259 / 55–6259 / 57–6359 / 57–6360 / 57–6362 / 59–6564 / 62–6667 / 62–7068 / 62–72

Each figure is the median across the 615 grid cells holding the 747 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 851:3929 (47.425, 16.475). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -26.0 °C, 1st-percentile night -12.4 °C, 99th-percentile day 33.4 °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 615 distinct grid cells holding the 747 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 851:3929 (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 47.50_16.250, lapse-corrected -128 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 340 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, Sweden, Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Hungary, Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, France, Portugal, Spain, Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Romania, Turkey-in-Europe, Yugoslavia, Belarus, Baltic States, Krym, Central European Russia, East European Russia, South European Russia, Northwest European Russia, Ukraine, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Altay, West Siberia, North Caucasus, Transcaucasus, Turkey· introduced: Yakutskiya, Massachusetts, New York
Kew's description“perennial” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker47.058, 8.59 · in the densest population, 339 records (45% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 753 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 245 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 62 km away. 1 record outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 6 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 4° block of the 753 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Betonica officinalisBetonica officinalisBetonica officinalisBetonica officinalisBetonica officinalisBetonica officinalisBetonica officinalisBetonica officinalis

Photographs: (c) Thomas Dreux, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Nicholas Moray Williams, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) Владимир Дворкин, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) claudeheidt, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Fyodor Pudovikov, 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 Betonica officinalis, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Comparative ecology of seedling recruitment in an oligotrophic wet meadow
Ivana Kotorová, Jan Lepš (1999) · Journal of Vegetation Science
Populations restored using regional seed are genetically diverse and similar to natural populations in the region
Johannes Höfner, Theresa Klein‐Raufhake, Christian Lampei, Ondřej Mudrák (2021) · Journal of Applied Ecology
Antioxidant properties and phenolic composition of wood betony (Betonica officinalis L., syn. Stachys officinalis L.)
Irma Šliumpaitė, P. R. Venskutonis, Michael Murkovic, Ona Ragažinskienė (2013) · Industrial Crops and Products
Allobetonicoside and 6‐O‐Acetylmioporoside: Two new iridoid glycosides from Betonica officinalis L.
Marianne Jeker, Otto Sticher, İhsan Çalış, Peter Rüedi (1989) · Helvetica Chimica Acta
Antioxidant activity and inhibitory effect of polyphenolic-rich extract from Betonica officinalis and Impatiens noli-tangere herbs on key enzyme linked to type 2 diabetes
Gabriela Păun, Elena Neagu, Camelia Albu, Veronica Moroeanu (2015) · Journal of the Taiwan Institute of Chemical Engineers
ESSENTIAL OILS IN SOME STACHYS SPECIES GROWING IN HUNGARY
Éva Csikyné Radnai, Ágnes Dobos, Katalin Veres, L. E. Toth (2003) · Acta Horticulturae
Genotoxic properties of Betonica officinalis, Gratiola officinalis, Vincetoxicum luteum and Vincetoxicum hirundinaria extracts
Gražina Slapšytė, Veronika Dedonytė, Aušra Adomėnienė, Juozas Rimantas Lazutka (2019) · Food and Chemical Toxicology
Nitrogen limitation reduces the performance of target plant species in restored meadows
Theresa Klein‐Raufhake, Johannes Höfner, Norbert Hölzel, Klaus‐Holger Knorr (2021) · Restoration Ecology
The impact of spatio-temporal changes in flora attributes and pollen availability on insect visitors in Lamiaceae species
Jacek Jachuła, Małgorzata Wrzesień, Monika Strzałkowska-Abramek, Bożena Denisow (2018) · Acta Botanica Croatica
TOTAL FLAVONOIDS, TOTAL PHENOLICS AND ANTIOXIDANT ACTIVITY OF BETONICA OFFICINALIS L. FROM KOSOVO
Avni Hajdari, Behxhet Mustafa, C.H. Franz, Johannes Novak (2010) · Acta Horticulturae
Current state and changes in Molinion meadows from Kostrze environs in Kraków
Tomasz Wójcik, Maria Janicka (2016) · Ecological Questions

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 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)
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 9 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.