Baltimora rectaL.

beautyhead

WFO wfo-0000036140 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Baltimora recta, photographed by Alexis López Hernández
fig. a Alexis López Hernández, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-01-03 / obs. 110420271

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 17 botanical countries

Regions where Baltimora recta is native: Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Southeast, Mexico Southwest, Belize, Brazil Northeast, Brazil Southeast, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panamá, Peru, Venezuela Mexico GulfMexico NortheastMexico SoutheastMexico SouthwestBelizeBrazil NortheastBrazil SoutheastCosta RicaEcuadorEl SalvadorGuatemalaGuyanaHondurasNicaraguaPanamáPeruVenezuela
Native distribution of Baltimora recta, 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
Belize BLZ SOUTHERN AMERICA
Brazil Northeast BZE
Brazil Southeast BZL
Costa Rica COS
Ecuador ECU
El Salvador ELS
Guatemala GUA
Guyana GUY
Honduras HON
Nicaragua NIC
Panamá PAN
Peru PER
Venezuela VEN
Mexico Gulf MXG NORTHERN AMERICA
Mexico Northeast MXE
Mexico Southeast MXT
Mexico Southwest MXS

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 79 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 15.9 °C 19.1 °C 23.9 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 26.0 °C 31.9 °C 35.7 °C
Annual rainfall 840 mm 1,506 mm 3,466 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 20 mm 46 mm 115 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 79 research-grade observations of Baltimora recta 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 14 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.

  • Baltimora alata Meerb.
  • Baltimora alba Pers.
  • Baltimora recta var. genuina Hassl.
  • Baltimora scolospermum Steetz
  • Baltimora scolospermum var. panamensis Steetz
  • Baltimora scolospermum var. scolospermum
  • Baltimora trinervata Moench
  • Fougeria tetragona Moench
  • Fougerouxia alba (Pers.) DC.
  • Fougerouxia recta (L.) DC.
  • Milleria alba hort. ex Pers.
  • Scolospermum baltimoroides Less.
  • Timanthea tristis Salisb.
  • Wedelia populifolia Hook. & Arn.

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.