Breynia fruticosa(L.) Müll.Arg.

WFO wfo-0001049253 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Breynia fruticosa, photographed by portioid
fig. a portioid, CC BY 4.0 / 2020-12-26 / obs. 108274282
Breynia fruticosa, photographed by portioid
fig. b portioid, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 69525681
Breynia fruticosa, photographed by Yj
fig. c Yj, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 18280205
Breynia fruticosa, photographed by portioid
fig. d portioid, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 14771255
Breynia fruticosa, photographed by portioid
fig. e portioid, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 10774827
Breynia fruticosa, photographed by portioid
fig. f portioid, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 11609777
Breynia fruticosa, photographed by Yj
fig. g Yj, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 134520505
Breynia fruticosa, photographed by Yj
fig. h Yj, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 110965960

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 6 botanical countries

Regions where Breynia fruticosa is native: China South-Central, China Southeast, Hainan, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam China South-CentralChina SoutheastHainanLaosThailandVietnam
Native distribution of Breynia fruticosa, 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
China South-Central CHC ASIA-TEMPERATE
China Southeast CHS
Hainan CHH
Laos LAO ASIA-TROPICAL
Thailand THA
Vietnam VIE

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 251 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 10.7 °C 12.2 °C 13.6 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 27.3 °C 29.5 °C 30.4 °C
Annual rainfall 1,279 mm 2,234 mm 2,794 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 80 mm 95 mm 116 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 251 research-grade observations of Breynia fruticosa 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 7 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.

  • Andrachne fruticosa L.
  • Melanthesa chinensis Blume
  • Melanthesa glaucescens Miq.
  • Phyllanthus introductus Steud.
  • Phyllanthus lucens Poir.
  • Phyllanthus simsianus Wall.
  • Phyllanthus turbinatus Sims

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.