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Rosaceae family

Dropwort Filipendula vulgaris

Dropwort is an introduced perennial herb, found in Canada and the lower 48 states. It grows to 1.3 ft.

More about this plant

Filipendula vulgaris, commonly known as dropwort or fern-leaf dropwort, is a perennial herbaceous plant in the family Rosaceae, closely related to meadowsweet. It is found in Europe, western Siberia, Asia Minor, the Caucusus and North Africa. It prefers dry pastures, mostly on lime rich soils. Wikipedia →

Growing & care

USDA PLANTS · TRY

Conditions

Sources · Conditions

Cold hardiness (derived) — Hardiness

Hardiness: ≥ zone 5 derived from its U.S. range

Size & form

Sources · Size & form

TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0) — Height · Foliage

USDA PLANTS — Lifespan

McKenzie et al. 2025 — community-science image analysis (MIT) — Flower colour

Height: 1.3 ft
Lifespan: Perennial
Foliage: Broadleaf
Flower colour: White AI AI image-analysis of community-science photos (~87% expert agreement) — not a botanical record

In the garden

Herb layer — Sits in the herb of a layered food forest or polyculture.Open guide →

Chop-and-drop biomass — Soft, low-density wood is quick-growing and easy to cut back — coppice it and drop the trimmings in place as mulch.Open guide →

derived roles

AI = read by an AI vision model · DERIVED = a computed estimate, not a direct measurement. The “How we know this” section below details each.

Species characteristics from USDA PLANTS (public domain) + TRY (CC BY) — general guidance, not a guarantee for your exact site. Deer "browsing" is documented palatability, not a deer-proof claim.

Wildlife & pollinators

How pollinator value is scored →

✦ Bees 66 bee visitors

66 native & managed bee species are documented visiting Dropwort — the 12 most-recorded:

Andrena cineraria · Ashy Mining Bee

Andrena nitida · mining bee Andrena semilaevis · mining bee

Andrena subopaca · mining bee

Apis mellifera · Honey Bee

Lasioglossum albipes · sweat bee

+ 6 more bees →

Lasioglossum calceatum · sweat bee

Nomada flavoguttata · cuckoo bee

Nomada goodeniana · cuckoo bee

Nomada marshamella · cuckoo bee

Nomada ruficornis · cuckoo bee

Nomada striata · cuckoo bee

Visitor records (observations, not exhaustive) from Noori et al. 2026 (CC BY 4.0) · GloBI →

Species thumbnails re-hosted from iNaturalist — Creative Commons, credited per image (hover for credit). Click any species to see it on iNaturalist. Not exhaustive; many taxa have no openly-licensed photo yet.

How we know this (3) Methods & honest limits

Leaf build Direct fact

We read each species’ measured specific leaf area (leaf area per unit dry weight) from the Global Spectrum dataset and band it: thin & fast (high SLA), medium, or thick & tough (low SLA). The global median is about 10 mm²/mg.

Honest limits: A species-mean from pooled measurements — individual plants vary with light and site. A broad strategy signal, not a precise per-plant figure.

Díaz, S. et al. (2022) The global spectrum of plant form and function: enhanced species-level trait dataset. Scientific Data 9:755.

Photosynthesis Direct fact

A recorded categorical fact: each species is tagged C3 (standard), C4 (heat/water-efficient) or CAM (succulent, night-time CO₂ uptake) — or a facultative combination. We only show a trait card for the noteworthy C4/CAM cases; C3 is the unremarkable majority, kept in the data but not surfaced as a card.

Kattge, J. et al. TRY plant trait database — Categorical Traits Dataset (2012).

Flower colour Derived

McKenzie et al. assigned each species a flower colour with a GPT-4V vision model over iNaturalist photos. We use the confident tier plus a separately-labelled lower-confidence top-up (mostly inconspicuous green/brown flowers), and render it as a small tint — never as an asserted fact, and kept out of the written synopsis.

Honest limits: AI image inference (~87% expert agreement on the confident tier); a decorative, confidence-tiered indicator, not a measured trait.

McKenzie, P., Berardi, A.E., Hopkins, R. (2025). flower_color_phenology (MIT).

Derived values are computed from open data by a published method — labelled, cited, and never shown as a direct observation. Full methodology →

Sources for this entry (20) Open & cited

[01] Scientific name & family — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)

[02] Growth habit & duration — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)

[03] Native status & distribution — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)

[04] Common name — USDA PLANTS (via GBIF)

[05] Invasive / introduced status — US-RIIS v2.0 (USGS)

[06] Photos — iNaturalist — CC, credited per image

[07] Description — Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)

[08] Ecological value — GloBI

[09] Conservation rank — NatureServe Explorer (CC BY)

[10] Foliage — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)

[11] Height — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)

[12] Functional traits — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)

[13] Photosynthetic pathway — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)

[14] Cold hardiness (derived) — Derived from U.S. range × USDA PHZM zones

[15] Flower colour — McKenzie et al. 2025 — community-science image analysis (MIT)

[16] Mycorrhiza — FungalRoot v2.0 · Meng et al. 2024 (Dryad, CC0)

[17] Chromosomes — ChromoDB — IAPT/IOPB chromosome data series (Zenodo, CC BY 4.0)

[18] Bee visitors — Noori et al. 2026 (Zenodo, CC BY 4.0) · via GloBI

[19] Flower-visitor value (derived) — Noori et al. 2026 (CC BY 4.0) · GloBI

[20] County range — GBIF Open Data — open-licensed occurrences (CC0/CC-BY) → county

Spot an error or have a better photo? Every field links to its source, and the whole dataset is open.

Cite this page Open data, please attribute

PlantKey’s data is open under CC BY-SA 4.0 — free to reuse and adapt, with attribution and the same licence. Photos keep their own per-image licence + credit (see Sources above).

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Ecological value open data

3 / 5 Keystone

Keystone (host) value — caterpillar, specialist-bee & monarch hosting. A low number means “not a keystone host,” not “low value”: generalist flower-visitor value is shown separately below and in Bees & wildlife.

Caterpillar host 3

Flower-visitor value derived 5

Recorded flower-visitor breadth — observations, not a nectar measurement. open data

⚠ non-native — reduced keystone value

Deep dive

Caterpillar host · 3/5 — native butterfly & moth caterpillars that feed on this genus — the base of the food web (more caterpillars → more songbirds). Genus-level keystone count from Warren II 2026 (CC0; Tallamy host-use records), gap-filled by our GloBI derivation.

Counts are genus-level and banded 0–5. Full rubric →

Host / keystone value from open interaction data. How this is scored →

📍 In your area live

Introduced to the U.S.

Recorded in 6 states.

Open occurrence records place it in 4 counties across 3 states · GBIF (CC0/CC-BY)

Introduced — Canada and Conterminous United States

Recorded in 6 states/territories

Conservation

Conservation status G5 — Secure

Invasive? Introduced

What do these ranks mean?

NatureServe ranks risk 1–5 (1 = rarest), globally (G) and per-state (S). A species can be secure worldwide yet at risk in your state. NatureServe →

Toxicity & pet safety

Check the ASPCA pet database →

Educational, not veterinary advice. If you suspect your pet ate this plant, contact a vet or pet poison-control line.

Functional traits TRY · Dryad

Wood density low

0.39 g/cm³

light, fast wood — quick biomass for chop-and-drop mulch

Seed mass tiny

0.77 mg

dust-fine seed — surface-sow; needs careful propagation

Leaf nitrogen average

18.1 mg/g

leaf nitrogen — a rough guide to compost/mulch value

Leaf build thin & fast

Thin & fast

thin, low-cost leaves — a fast, light-hungry build built for quick growth (measured leaf area per weight 17.5 mm²/mg)

Leaf size small

Small

small, fine-textured leaves (measured leaf area ~1.7 cm²)

Mycorrhiza obligate

Arbuscular (AM)

partners with arbuscular fungi — the commonest symbiosis; helps reach phosphorus & water, aiding drought resilience

Chromosomes recorded

2n = 14

somatic chromosome number

Deep dive — what these mean

Wood density 0.39 g/cm³ — how heavy the wood is for its size. Denser wood = hotter, longer-burning firewood and tougher poles; lighter wood rots fast (quick mulch).

Seed mass 1 mg — average weight of one seed. Bigger seeds are easier to hand-collect & direct-sow; dust-fine seeds need surface-sowing.

Leaf nitrogen 18.1 mg/g — measured leaf N. Higher = richer prunings for compost/mulch (a measured stand-in for "dynamic accumulator" claims).

Leaf build — how thick & tough the leaves are. Thin, lightweight leaves grow fast and crave light; thick, tough leaves last longer and shrug off shade, drought & grazing. (measured leaf area per dry weight, 17.5 mm²/mg)

Photosynthesis — the standard “C3” pathway most plants use, most active in cooler, moister, moderate-light conditions. (pathway C3)

Mycorrhiza AM — the root–fungus partnership it forms (AM = most plants; ECM = most forest trees; ERM = heaths; NM = none). Trades sugars for water & nutrients via shared soil networks.

Measured traits from TRY + Werner et al. (N-fix), Fan et al. (roots) & FungalRoot — general guidance, not species-specific prescriptions.

More modules coming

Dropwort Filipendula vulgaris

Growing & care

Wildlife & pollinators

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