Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations
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 18 botanical countries
| Region | TDWG code | Continent |
|---|---|---|
| Aruba | ARU | SOUTHERN AMERICA |
| Belize | BLZ | |
| Chile North | CLN | |
| Colombia | CLM | |
| Cuba | CUB | |
| Ecuador | ECU | |
| French Guiana | FRG | |
| Galápagos | GAL | |
| Guyana | GUY | |
| Jamaica | JAM | |
| Leeward Is. | LEE | |
| Netherlands Antilles | NLA | |
| Panamá | PAN | |
| Peru | PER | |
| Suriname | SUR | |
| Windward Is. | WIN | |
| Mexico Gulf | MXG | NORTHERN AMERICA |
| Mexico Southeast | MXT |
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.
Where it actually grows measured, from 119 observations
| Condition | 5th percentile | Median | 95th percentile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coldest month, mean daily low | 8.4 °C | 15.9 °C | 24.9 °C |
| Warmest month, mean daily high | 22.5 °C | 28.1 °C | 31.4 °C |
| Annual rainfall | 29 mm | 75 mm | 1,211 mm |
| Rainfall in the driest quarter | 1 mm | 9 mm | 110 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 119 research-grade observations of Alternanthera halimifolia 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 Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.
Also published as 21 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.
- Achyranthes halimifolia Lam.
- Adoketon maritimum Raf.
- Adoketon saxatile Raf.
- Alternanthera ficoidea var. halimifolia (Lam.) Kuntze
- Alternanthera ficoides var. flavogrisea (Urb.) Fawc. & Rendle
- Alternanthera flavogrisea (Urb.) Urb.
- Alternanthera halimifolia subsp. macrophylla J.T.Howell
- Alternanthera tenella subsp. flavogrisea (Urb.) Mears & Veldkamp
- Bucholzia frutescens (L'Hér.) Mart.
- Celosia peruviana Van Spand. ex Moq.
- Gomphrena crucis Vahl ex Moq.
- Gomphrena ficoidea Jacq.
- Illecebrum alsinaefolium Scop.
- Illecebrum frutescens L'Hér.
- Illecebrum limense Dum.Cours.
- Telanthera crucis Moq.
- Telanthera densiflora Moq.
- Telanthera flavogrisea Urb.
- Telanthera frutescens (L'Hér.) Moq.
- Telanthera frutescens var. acutifolia Moq.
- Telanthera halimifolia (Lam.) A.Stewart
Sourcesevery claim on this page
- World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
- iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
- USDA PLANTS Database. common name, checklist symbol ALFL5. public domain. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
- 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.