Aizoon canarienseL.

Purslane-leaved aizoon

WFO wfo-0000524796 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Aizoon canariense, photographed by desertnaturalist
fig. a desertnaturalist, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-09 / obs. 205778720
Aizoon canariense, photographed by Alessia Guggisberg
fig. b Alessia Guggisberg, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 202545102
Aizoon canariense, photographed by Christina s.l.
fig. c Christina s.l., CC BY 4.0 / obs. 183518058
Aizoon canariense, photographed by William Stephens
fig. d William Stephens, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 182095507
Aizoon canariense, photographed by Christian Berg
fig. e Christian Berg, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 175255139
Aizoon canariense, photographed by Julien Renoult
fig. f Julien Renoult, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 116041001
Aizoon canariense, photographed by desertnaturalist
fig. g desertnaturalist, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 63374542
Aizoon canariense, photographed by Andre Hosper
fig. h Andre Hosper, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 59973673

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 38 botanical countries

Regions where Aizoon canariense is native: Algeria, Canary Is., Cape Provinces, Cape Verde, Chad, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Eswatini, Free State, Kenya, KwaZulu-Natal, Libya, Madeira, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Mozambique, Namibia, Northern Provinces, Selvagens, Socotra, Somalia, Sudan-South Sudan, Tunisia, Western Sahara, Zimbabwe, Gulf States, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon-Syria, Oman, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Sinai, Yemen, Pakistan AlgeriaCape ProvincesChadDjiboutiEgyptEritreaEswatiniFree StateKenyaKwaZulu-NatalLibyaMaliMauritaniaMoroccoMozambiqueNamibiaNorthern ProvincesSelvagensSomaliaSudan-South SudanTunisiaWestern SaharaZimbabweGulf StatesIranIraqKuwaitLebanon-SyriaOmanPalestineSaudi ArabiaSinaiYemenPakistan Canary Is.Cape VerdeMadeira
Native distribution of Aizoon canariense, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Algeria ALG AFRICA
Canary Is. CNY
Cape Provinces CPP
Cape Verde CVI
Chad CHA
Djibouti DJI
Egypt EGY
Eritrea ERI
Eswatini SWZ
Free State OFS
Kenya KEN
KwaZulu-Natal NAT
Libya LBY
Madeira MDR
Mali MLI
Mauritania MTN
Morocco MOR
Mozambique MOZ
Namibia NAM
Northern Provinces TVL
Selvagens SEL
Socotra SOC
Somalia SOM
Sudan-South Sudan SUD
Tunisia TUN
Western Sahara WSA
Zimbabwe ZIM
Gulf States GST ASIA-TEMPERATE
Iran IRN
Iraq IRQ
Kuwait KUW
Lebanon-Syria LBS
Oman OMA
Palestine PAL
Saudi Arabia SAU
Sinai SIN
Yemen YEM
Pakistan PAK ASIA-TROPICAL

Not drawn on the map: Socotra. We hold no public-domain boundary for this region, so it is listed rather than guessed at.

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Flowering 101 in flower of 160 examined

Peak flowering in Sep. Each bar is the share of Aizoon canariense observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 101 of 160 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 2 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Where it actually grows measured, from 1,310 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 4.1 °C 15.0 °C 18.1 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 22.5 °C 24.5 °C 40.9 °C
Annual rainfall 80 mm 237 mm 1,101 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 0 mm 5 mm 57 mm

It is barely found anywhere that freezes. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 1,310 research-grade observations of Aizoon canariense that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one. Climate from CHELSA V2.1 (Karger et al. 2017); occurrences from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 9 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Aizoon canariense var. denudata Sond.
  • Aizoon procumbens Crantz
  • Aizoon spathulatum Eckl. & Zeyh.
  • Glinus chrystallinus Forssk.
  • Glinus chrystallinus Forssk.
  • Glinus procumbens Forssk. ex Adamson
  • Mesembryanthemum dubium Haw.
  • Veslingia cauliflora Moench
  • Veslingia heisteri Fabr. ex Willd.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.