This species has a scattered distribution in the eastern Emirates of the UAE, with records from the Arabian Gulf coast, from the east coast, Al Ain (Jongbloed et al. 2003) and from Jebel Hafeet (Abu Dhabi Emirate; Sakkir and Brown 2014). The origin of the species is uncertain, and the opinion of the UAE native plant working group (June 2019) was divided. The species occurs in the Olive Highlands as a result of human transport (Feulner 2014) and in two peri-anthropic localities in Wadi Wurayah National Park (Feulner 2016). It occurs in the Ru'us al Jibal to at least 1,550 m elevation (Feulner 2011). The species is very widespread globally, however the native distribution is uncertain and it has been very widely introduced and naturalised. GRIN (2019) considered it to be native to parts of Europe, Africa, Asia-Temperate and Asia-Tropical, but naturalised in the Arabian Peninsula (and not recorded for the UAE). In contrast, Plants of the World Online (Board of Trustees, RBG Kew 2019) considers it native to western Europe, northern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, and introduced elsewhere.