Species
+

Tulipa sylvestris L.

Dutch-lily, Tulip, Wild Tulip

Climate known 79 photographs Bulb, tuber or caudex
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

Tulipa sylvestris, the wild tulip or woodland tulip, is a Eurasian and North African species of wild tulip, a plant in the lily family. Its native range extends from Portugal and Morocco to western China, covering most of the Mediterranean and Black Sea Basins, and Central Asia. The species is also cultivated as an ornamental and naturalized in central and northern Europe as well as a few scattered locations in North America. It was first recorded as being naturalised in Britain in the late 17th century.

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

About the genus · Tulipa

Tulips are spring-blooming perennial herbaceous bulbiferous geophytes in the Tulipa genus. Their flowers are usually large, showy, and brightly coloured, generally red, orange, pink, yellow, or white. They often have a different coloured blotch at the base of the tepals, internally. More on Wikipedia ›

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

Family
Liliaceae
Described by
L.
Native to
Switzerland, France, Portugal +27
Wild records
1144 in range· 877 open

At a glance

Warmest month
26°C
Jul, mean day; nights 16 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
847mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Oct 92 mm (CHELSA)
Light
8–42DLI
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 bulb, tuber or caudex by the genus Tulipa, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (September to January and April to June in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 847 mm a year, wettest October at 92 mm, driest July at 54 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 8 to 42 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 Liriopogon sylvestre (L.) Raf.; Tulipa breyniana KerGawl.; Tulipa browniana H.Vilm.; Tulipa persica Willd.; Tulipa persica Willd. ex Kunth.

Cultivation

Grouped as a bulb, tuber or caudex by the genus Tulipa, 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 (September to January and April to June 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 (623 mm of 847 mm) takes 8 months, September to January and April to June. Mean temperature moves 18.2 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: March to July and October to December.

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 847 mm a year, wettest October at 92 mm, driest July at 54 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

847 mm a year at the habitat, 623 mm of it September to January and April to June. Wettest month October at 92 mm, driest July at 54 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 532 mm to 1382 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: 8 to 42 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 8 to 42 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 5, the highest 90th-percentile month 47).

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 -18.7 °C, about 90 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 29.4 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -0.9 °C in January (across the envelope cells -9.0 °C to 3.3 °C), warmest day 25.6 °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: 56 to 64% 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 6 °C in Jan to 26 °C in Jul; mean night from -1 °C in Jan to 16 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 847 mm of rain a year, most in Oct. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 941 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -18.7 °C and the 99th-percentile day 29.4 °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°frost29.4° 99th-percentile day (undated)-18.7° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter050100150200mm rainDLI 8–42RH 56–64 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 941 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 °C6 / -3–107 / -2–1111 / 4–1514 / 9–1719 / 14–2123 / 18–2626 / 20–2925 / 20–2920 / 16–2415 / 11–1910 / 3–146 / -1–11
Night °C-1 / -9–3-1 / -9–42 / -5–65 / -1–89 / 4–1213 / 7–1616 / 10–1915 / 10–1912 / 7–158 / 3–123 / -4–70 / -8–4
Rain mm72 / 40–11257 / 35–9157 / 34–9676 / 37–12576 / 45–13264 / 32–10654 / 15–8756 / 28–9576 / 43–13692 / 42–16584 / 46–14983 / 44–142
DLI10 / 6–1516 / 11–2125 / 20–3032 / 28–3737 / 34–4241 / 36–4642 / 36–4736 / 31–4027 / 22–3118 / 13–2211 / 7–158 / 5–12
RH %64 / 58–7062 / 57–6760 / 56–6359 / 56–6159 / 54–6258 / 54–6156 / 52–5957 / 53–6059 / 56–6262 / 59–6564 / 59–6864 / 58–69

Each figure is the median across the 941 grid cells holding the 1114 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 842:3706 (47.875, 5.325). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -18.7 °C, 1st-percentile night -9.9 °C, 99th-percentile day 29.4 °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 941 distinct grid cells holding the 1114 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 842:3706 (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 48.00_5.625, lapse-corrected +30 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 383 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.
NativeSwitzerland, France, Portugal, Sardegna, Spain, Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Romania, Sicilia, Yugoslavia, Belarus, Krym, Central European Russia, East European Russia, South European Russia, Ukraine, Algeria, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, Altay, West Siberia, Kazakhstan, North Caucasus, Transcaucasus, Iran, Turkey, Xinjiang· introduced: Denmark, Great Britain, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Netherlands, Poland, Baltic States, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland
Kew's description“bulbous geophyte”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker44.218, 5.199 · in the densest population, 552 records (48% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1144 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 877 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 10 km away. 495 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 30 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 1144 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Tulipa sylvestrisTulipa sylvestrisTulipa sylvestrisTulipa sylvestrisTulipa sylvestrisTulipa sylvestrisTulipa sylvestrisTulipa sylvestris

Photographs: (c) Aissa Djamel Filali, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) (8).

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

Tuliposides from Tulipa sylvestris and T. turkestanica
Lars Porskjær Christensen (1999) · Phytochemistry
Double Fertilization in Compositae
W. J. G. Land (1900) · Botanical Gazette
A phylogenetic analysis of the wild Tulipa species (Liliaceae) of Kosovo based on plastid and nuclear DNA sequence
Avni Hajdari, Bledar Pulaj, Corinna Schmiderer, Xhavit Mala (2021) · Advanced Genetics
Tracing the introduction history of the tulip that went wild (Tulipa sylvestris) in sixteenth-century Europe
Anastasia Stefanaki, Tilmann Walter, Tinde van Andel (2022) · Scientific Reports
Characterization and phylogenetic analysis of the complete chloroplast genome of Tulipa patens (Liliaceae)
Xiuting Ju, Guomin Shi, Shengrong Chen, Wubin Dai (2021) · Mitochondrial DNA Part B
Comentarios y precisiones previos a la «Checklist» de la flora de Cataluña (noreste de la península Ibérica)
Pere Aymerich, Llorenç Sáez (2015) · Orsis, organismes i sistemes: revista de botànica, zoologia i ecologia
Notulae ad Floram Germanicam I
Rolf Wißkirchen, Knud Ib Christensen, W. Bernhard Dickoré, Günter Gottschlich (1997) · Feddes Repertorium
Note fitogeografiche e citotassonomiche su Adoxa moschatellina L., Tulipa sylvestris L., Fritillaria tenella Bieb.
Giuliano Cesca (1986) · Biogeographia – The Journal of Integrative Biogeography
Zur Verbreitung und Lebensgeschichte der Wildtulpe (Tulipa sylvestris L.) und Bemerkungen zur Chorologie der Gattung Tulipa L.
Eckehart J. Jäger (1973) · Digitalen Hochschulbibliothek Sachsen-Anhalt (Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Sachsen-Anhalt)
First appearance of smut disease on woodland tulip, Tulipa sylvestris, in Iran
Mahdi Arzanlou (2017) · Plant Pathology & Quarantine

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 Tulipa 4 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 197 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.