Barleria prionitisL.

porcupine flower

WFO wfo-0000560485 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Barleria prionitis, photographed by S.MORE
fig. a S.MORE, CC0 1.0 / 2021-10-28 / obs. 166255528
Barleria prionitis, photographed by S.MORE
fig. b S.MORE, CC0 1.0 / obs. 110401222
Barleria prionitis, photographed by Raja bandi
fig. c Raja bandi, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 105252983
Barleria prionitis, photographed by John Brew
fig. d John Brew, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 65660668
Barleria prionitis, photographed by Don Loarie
fig. e Don Loarie, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 58828144
Barleria prionitis, photographed by Dinesh Valke
fig. f Dinesh Valke, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 133852209
Barleria prionitis, photographed by S.MORE
fig. g S.MORE, CC0 1.0 / obs. 143829725
Barleria prionitis, photographed by Dinesh Valke
fig. h Dinesh Valke, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 138717572

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 24 botanical countries

Regions where Barleria prionitis is native: Eritrea, Ethiopia, Madagascar, China South-Central, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Assam, Bangladesh, India, Jawa, Laccadive Is., Laos, Lesser Sunda Is., Malaya, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Sulawesi, Thailand, Vietnam, West Himalaya EritreaEthiopiaMadagascarChina South-CentralSaudi ArabiaYemenAssamBangladeshIndiaJawaLaosLesser Sunda Is.MalayaMyanmarNepalPakistanPhilippinesSri LankaSulawesiThailandVietnamWest Himalaya Laccadive Is.Maldives
Native distribution of Barleria prionitis, 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
Assam ASS ASIA-TROPICAL
Bangladesh BAN
India IND
Jawa JAW
Laccadive Is. LDV
Laos LAO
Lesser Sunda Is. LSI
Malaya MLY
Maldives MDV
Myanmar MYA
Nepal NEP
Pakistan PAK
Philippines PHI
Sri Lanka SRL
Sulawesi SUL
Thailand THA
Vietnam VIE
West Himalaya WHM
Eritrea ERI AFRICA
Ethiopia ETH
Madagascar MDG
China South-Central CHC ASIA-TEMPERATE
Saudi Arabia SAU
Yemen YEM

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 49 in flower of 53 examined

Peak flowering in Jan. Each bar is the share of Barleria prionitis 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. 49 of 53 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 11 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 echinata St.-Lag.
  • Barleria hystrix L.
  • Barleria prionitis subsp. madagascariensis Benoist
  • Barleria prionitis var. angustissima Hochr.
  • Barleria prionitis var. diacantha Blatt. & Hallb.
  • Barleria prionitis var. pubescens Kuntze
  • Barleria pubiflora Benth. ex Hohen.
  • Barleria quadrispinosa Stokes
  • Barleria spicata Roxb.
  • Prionitis hystrix (L.) Miq.
  • Prionitis pubiflora Miq.

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.