Batis maritimaL.

BatisBeachwortSaltwortTurtleweedturtleweed

WFO wfo-0000320463 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Batis maritima, photographed by rockybajada
fig. a rockybajada, CC0 1.0 / 2022-06-05 / obs. 203625992

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.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
The New York Botanical Garden
Accession
39911
Filed as
Batis maritima L.
Det. by
H. T. Beck 1990-01-01
Collected
H. T. Beck 1990-06-20
Origin
US
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 39 botanical countries

Regions where Batis maritima is native: Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southeast, Mexico Southwest, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, Aruba, Bahamas, Belize, Brazil Northeast, Brazil Southeast, Cayman Is., Colombia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Galápagos, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Leeward Is., Netherlands Antilles, Nicaragua, Peru, Puerto Rico, Southwest Caribbean, Suriname, Trinidad-Tobago, Turks-Caicos Is., Venezuela, Windward Is. AlabamaCaliforniaFloridaGeorgiaLouisianaMexico GulfMexico NortheastMexico NorthwestMexico SoutheastMexico SouthwestNorth CarolinaSouth CarolinaTexasBelizeBrazil NortheastBrazil SoutheastColombiaCubaDominican RepublicEcuadorGuyanaHaitiHondurasJamaicaNicaraguaPeruPuerto RicoSouthwest CaribbeanSurinameTrinidad-TobagoVenezuela ArubaBahamasCayman Is.GalápagosLeeward Is.Netherlands AntillesTurks-Caicos Is.Windward Is.
Native distribution of Batis maritima, 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
Aruba ARU SOUTHERN AMERICA
Bahamas BAH
Belize BLZ
Brazil Northeast BZE
Brazil Southeast BZL
Cayman Is. CAY
Colombia CLM
Cuba CUB
Dominican Republic DOM
Ecuador ECU
Galápagos GAL
Guyana GUY
Haiti HAI
Honduras HON
Jamaica JAM
Leeward Is. LEE
Netherlands Antilles NLA
Nicaragua NIC
Peru PER
Puerto Rico PUE
Southwest Caribbean SWC
Suriname SUR
Trinidad-Tobago TRT
Turks-Caicos Is. TCI
Venezuela VEN
Windward Is. WIN
Alabama ALA NORTHERN AMERICA
California CAL
Florida FLA
Georgia GEO
Louisiana LOU
Mexico Gulf MXG
Mexico Northeast MXE
Mexico Northwest MXN
Mexico Southeast MXT
Mexico Southwest MXS
North Carolina NCA
South Carolina SCA
Texas TEX

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 2,003 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 9.1 °C 14.5 °C 23.1 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 23.7 °C 29.4 °C 33.1 °C
Annual rainfall 178 mm 921 mm 1,467 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 2 mm 125 mm 233 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 2,003 research-grade observations of Batis maritima 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 2 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.

  • Batis americana L.
  • Batis californica Torr.

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.