Anchomanes difformis(Blume) Engl.

WFO wfo-0000970027 Accepted WFO 2026-06 3 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–c · 3 separate observations

Anchomanes difformis, photographed by Sunday Berlioz KAKPO
fig. a Sunday Berlioz KAKPO, CC BY 4.0 / 2014-03-13 / obs. 29284830
Anchomanes difformis, photographed by Chris Quirin
fig. b Chris Quirin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 56242197
Anchomanes difformis, photographed by Sunday Berlioz KAKPO
fig. c Sunday Berlioz KAKPO, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 33676467

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 26 botanical countries

Regions where Anchomanes difformis is native: Angola, Benin, Burkina, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, DR Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Gulf of Guinea Is., Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sudan-South Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia AngolaBeninBurkinaCameroonCentral African RepublicChadCongoDR CongoEquatorial GuineaGabonGambiaGhanaGuineaGuinea-BissauGulf of Guinea Is.Ivory CoastLiberiaMaliNigeriaSenegalSierra LeoneSudan-South SudanTanzaniaTogoUgandaZambia
Native distribution of Anchomanes difformis, 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.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Angola ANG AFRICA
Benin BEN
Burkina BKN
Cameroon CMN
Central African Republic CAF
Chad CHA
Congo CON
DR Congo ZAI
Equatorial Guinea EQG
Gabon GAB
Gambia GAM
Ghana GHA
Guinea GUI
Guinea-Bissau GNB
Gulf of Guinea Is. GGI
Ivory Coast IVO
Liberia LBR
Mali MLI
Nigeria NGA
Senegal SEN
Sierra Leone SIE
Sudan-South Sudan SUD
Tanzania TAN
Togo TOG
Uganda UGA
Zambia ZAM

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 45 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 15.2 °C 21.2 °C 23.3 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 26.8 °C 32.9 °C 36.2 °C
Annual rainfall 1,050 mm 1,775 mm 3,858 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 1 mm 63 mm 280 mm

It is not found anywhere that gets close to freezing. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 45 research-grade observations of Anchomanes difformis 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 12 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.

  • Amorphophallus difformis Blume
  • Anchomanes difformis var. welwitschii (Rendle) Engl.
  • Anchomanes dubius Schott
  • Anchomanes hookeri (Kunth) Schott
  • Anchomanes hookeri var. pallidus Hook.
  • Anchomanes obtusus A.Chev.
  • Anchomanes petiolatus (Hook.) Hutch.
  • Anchomanes welwitschii Rendle
  • Caladium petiolatum Hook.
  • Cyrtosperma congoensis L.Linden
  • Pythonium hookeri Kunth
  • Sauromatum ferox Linden ex Engl.

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. 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.