Species
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Eupatorium capillifolium (Lam.) Small

Anis de la tierra, Bahamas), Copal, Dog fennel (USA

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

Eupatorium capillifolium, or dog fennel, is a North American perennial herbaceous plant in the family Asteraceae, native to the eastern and south-central United States. It is generally between 50 cm and 2 meters tall with several stems that fork from a substantial base. The stems and base are covered in leaves so dissected that they resemble branching green threads coming out of the stem in fractal patterns. When crushed, the leaves have a sour odor similar to dill pickles. More on Wikipedia ›

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

About the genus · Eupatorium

Eupatorium is a genus of flowering plants in the family Asteraceae, containing from 36 to 60 species depending on the classification system. Most are herbaceous perennials growing to 0.5–3 m (1.6–9.8 ft) tall. A few are shrubs. More on Wikipedia ›

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

Family
Asteraceae
Described by
(Lam.) Small
Native to
Missouri, Oklahoma, Connecticut +20
Wild records
1890 in range· 375 open

At a glance

Warmest month
31°C
Jul, mean day; nights 23 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
1248mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Jul 132 mm (CHELSA)
Light
16–40DLI
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 (December to January, March and May to September in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 1248 mm a year, wettest July at 132 mm, driest April at 87 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 16 to 40 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -5.7 °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 Artemisia capillifolia Lam.; Artemisia tenuifolia Willd.; Chrysocoma capillacea Michx.; Eupatorium capillifolium (Lam.) Small ex Porter & Britton; Eupatorium capillifolium var. capillifolium and 9 more.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (December to January, March and May to September 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 (890 mm of 1248 mm) takes 8 months, December to January, March and May to September. Mean temperature moves 19.2 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: November to March, June to July and September.

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 1248 mm a year, wettest July at 132 mm, driest April at 87 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1248 mm a year at the habitat, 890 mm of it December to January, March and May to September. Wettest month July at 132 mm, driest April at 87 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1147 mm to 1579 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: 16 to 40 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 16 to 40 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 14, the highest 90th-percentile month 42).

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 -5.7 °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 -5.7 °C, the absolute minimum -16.0 °C, about 38 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 38.5 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 3.9 °C in January (across the envelope cells -0.2 °C to 12.1 °C), warmest day 31.3 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -5.7 °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: 56 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 13 °C in Jan to 31 °C in Jul; mean night from 4 °C in Jan to 23 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 1248 mm of rain a year, most in Jul. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 1389 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -16.0 °C and the 99th-percentile day 38.5 °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°frost38.5° 99th-percentile day (undated)-16.0° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter050100150200250mm rainDLI 16–40RH 56–61 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 1389 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 °C13 / 8–2115 / 10–2219 / 15–2423 / 20–2727 / 24–3030 / 28–3231 / 29–3331 / 29–3328 / 26–3024 / 20–2819 / 15–2514 / 10–22
Night °C4 / -0–125 / 1–139 / 4–1513 / 9–1817 / 14–2121 / 19–2423 / 21–2523 / 21–2520 / 17–2415 / 11–2110 / 6–175 / 2–14
Rain mm95 / 62–13791 / 70–144109 / 90–14487 / 66–12199 / 72–131123 / 101–205132 / 106–196125 / 94–205111 / 92–19092 / 79–13588 / 56–12696 / 64–146
DLI17 / 16–2222 / 21–2729 / 28–3336 / 35–3939 / 38–4240 / 38–4138 / 38–4035 / 34–3830 / 29–3225 / 23–2719 / 17–2316 / 14–20
RH %58 / 57–5957 / 56–5957 / 55–5956 / 54–5958 / 56–6160 / 58–6361 / 59–6461 / 59–6460 / 58–6358 / 57–6158 / 57–5959 / 57–60

Each figure is the median across the 1389 grid cells holding the 1777 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 1147:1874 (32.625, -86.275). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -16.0 °C, 1st-percentile night -5.7 °C, 99th-percentile day 38.5 °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 1389 distinct grid cells holding the 1777 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1147:1874 (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 32.50_-86.250, lapse-corrected -21 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 84 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.
NativeMissouri, Oklahoma, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Bahamas, Bermuda· introduced: Assam, East Himalaya, India, Nepal, West Himalaya, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Hawaii, New York, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Cuba, Venezuela
Kew's description“annual” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker28.624, -81.407 · in the densest population, 1196 records (63% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1890 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 375 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 125 km away. 10 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 113 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 1890 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Eupatorium capillifoliumEupatorium capillifoliumEupatorium capillifoliumEupatorium capillifoliumEupatorium capillifoliumEupatorium capillifoliumEupatorium capillifoliumEupatorium capillifolium

Photographs: (c) Laura Clark, some rights reserved (CC BY) (4); no rights reserved · CC0 (4).

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

The Role of Weed Hosts and Tobacco Thrips, Frankliniella fusca, in the Epidemiology of Tomato spotted wilt virus
Russell L. Groves, J. F. Walgenbach, J. W. Moyer, George G. Kennedy (2002) · Plant Disease
Chemical defense: Bestowal of a nuptial alkaloidal garment by a male moth on its mate
William E. Conner, Ruth Boada, Frank C. Schroeder, Andrés González (2000) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Effect of Forest Clear-Cut Edge on Breeding Birds in East Texas
William Kenneth Strelke, James G. Dickson (1980) · Journal of Wildlife Management
Interactive effects of pasture management intensity, release from grazing and prescribed fire on forty subtropical wetland plant assemblages
Elizabeth H. Boughton, Pedro F. Quintana‐Ascencio, Patrick J. Bohlen, John E. Fauth (2015) · Journal of Applied Ecology
Eupatorium Capillifolium Essential Oil: Chemical Composition, Antifungal Activity, and Insecticidal Activity
Nurhayat Tabanca, Ulrich R. Bernier, Maia Tsikolia, James J. Becnel (2010) · Natural Product Communications
Rainfall interception and redistribution by a common North American understory and pasture forb, Eupatorium capillifolium (Lam. dogfennel)
D. Alex R. Gordon, Miriam Coenders‐Gerrits, Brent A. Sellers, Seyed Mohammad Moein Sadeghi (2020) · Hydrology and earth system sciences
Factors Affecting Germination of Dogfennel (Eupatorium capillifolium) and Yankeeweed (Eupatorium compositifolium)
Gregory E. MacDonald, Barry J. Brecke, Donn G. Shilling (1992) · Weed Science
Dogfennel (Eupatorium capillifolium) Size at Application Affects Herbicide Efficacy
Brent A. Sellers, Jason A. Ferrell, Gregory E. MacDonald, William N. Kline (2009) · Weed Technology
Chemical and Mechanical Control of Dogfennel (Eupatorium capillifolium)
Gregory E. MacDonald, Barry J. Brecke, Daniel L. Colvin, Donn G. Shilling (1994) · Weed Technology
Secondary hosts of the Asian citrus psyllid, Diaphorina citri Kuwayama: Survivorship and preference
Nicholas Johnston, Philip A. Stansly, Lukasz L. Stelinski (2019) · Journal of Applied Entomology

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 Eupatorium 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 44 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.