Barleria cristataL.

Philippine violetcrested Philippine violet

WFO wfo-0000560242 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Barleria cristata, photographed by Kevin Faccenda
fig. a Kevin Faccenda, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-03 / obs. 204061767
Barleria cristata, photographed by Hopeland
fig. b Hopeland, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 173593887
Barleria cristata, photographed by Haneesh K M
fig. c Haneesh K M, CC0 1.0 / obs. 167131772
Barleria cristata, photographed by portioid
fig. d portioid, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 27041825
Barleria cristata, photographed by portioid
fig. e portioid, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 12345386
Barleria cristata, photographed by Ben Machado
fig. f Ben Machado, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 194221459
Barleria cristata, photographed by Robert Guralnick
fig. g Robert Guralnick, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 163179435
Barleria cristata, photographed by Adam Pitcher
fig. h Adam Pitcher, CC0 1.0 / obs. 73599999

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 23 botanical countries

Regions where Barleria cristata is native: China South-Central, China Southeast, Hainan, Taiwan, Andaman Is., Assam, Bangladesh, Cambodia, East Himalaya, India, Jawa, Laos, Malaya, Myanmar, Nepal, New Guinea, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam, West Himalaya, Panamá China South-CentralChina SoutheastHainanTaiwanAssamBangladeshCambodiaEast HimalayaIndiaJawaLaosMalayaMyanmarNepalNew GuineaPakistanPhilippinesSri LankaThailandVietnamWest HimalayaPanamá Andaman Is.
Native distribution of Barleria cristata, 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
Andaman Is. AND ASIA-TROPICAL
Assam ASS
Bangladesh BAN
Cambodia CBD
East Himalaya EHM
India IND
Jawa JAW
Laos LAO
Malaya MLY
Myanmar MYA
Nepal NEP
New Guinea NWG
Pakistan PAK
Philippines PHI
Sri Lanka SRL
Thailand THA
Vietnam VIE
West Himalaya WHM
China South-Central CHC ASIA-TEMPERATE
China Southeast CHS
Hainan CHH
Taiwan TAI
Panamá PAN SOUTHERN AMERICA

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 58 in flower of 58 examined

Peak flowering in Jan. Each bar is the share of Barleria cristata 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. 58 of 58 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 6 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.

Also published as 20 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.

  • Barleria alba G.Lodd.
  • Barleria chegosa Wall.
  • Barleria ciliata Roxb.
  • Barleria cristata var. albida Haines
  • Barleria cristata var. dichotoma (Roxb.) Prain
  • Barleria cristata var. lactea Desf. ex Nees
  • Barleria cristata var. mairei (H.Lév.) H.P.Tsui
  • Barleria cristata var. mairei H.Lév.
  • Barleria dichotoma Roxb.
  • Barleria indica L. ex T.Anderson
  • Barleria laciniata Wall.
  • Barleria lactea Desf. ex Steud.
  • Barleria mairei H.Lév.
  • Barleria napalensis Nees
  • Barleria napalensis var. microphylla Nees
  • Barleria nuda Nees
  • Barleria prinoides Nees
  • Barleria venulosa Nees
  • Lepidagathis laciniata Wall. ex Nees
  • Ruellia ciliata Wall. ex Nees

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.