Bridelia catharticaBertol.

WFO wfo-0000416794 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 5 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 5 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.

Bridelia cathartica, photographed by Wynand Uys
fig. a Wynand Uys, CC BY 4.0 / 2014-06-29 / obs. 15398067
Bridelia cathartica, photographed by Wynand Uys
fig. b Wynand Uys, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 132310822
Bridelia cathartica, photographed by Wynand Uys
fig. c Wynand Uys, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 132310808
Bridelia cathartica, photographed by rosshawkins
fig. d rosshawkins, CC0 1.0 / obs. 177126366
Bridelia cathartica, photographed by Benjamin Fredlund
fig. e Benjamin Fredlund, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 118523443
Bridelia cathartica, photographed by rosshawkins
fig. f rosshawkins, CC0 1.0 / obs. 177126393
Bridelia cathartica, photographed by Andrew Deacon
fig. g Andrew Deacon, CC0 1.0 / obs. 173693089
Bridelia cathartica, photographed by Andrew Deacon
fig. h Andrew Deacon, CC0 1.0 / obs. 173693096

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 16 botanical countries

Regions where Bridelia cathartica is native: Angola, Botswana, Caprivi Strip, DR Congo, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Kenya, KwaZulu-Natal, Malawi, Mozambique, Northern Provinces, Somalia, Sudan-South Sudan, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe AngolaBotswanaCaprivi StripDR CongoEswatiniEthiopiaKenyaKwaZulu-NatalMalawiMozambiqueNorthern ProvincesSomaliaSudan-South SudanTanzaniaZambiaZimbabwe
Native distribution of Bridelia cathartica, 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
Angola ANG AFRICA
Botswana BOT
Caprivi Strip CPV
DR Congo ZAI
Eswatini SWZ
Ethiopia ETH
Kenya KEN
KwaZulu-Natal NAT
Malawi MLW
Mozambique MOZ
Northern Provinces TVL
Somalia SOM
Sudan-South Sudan SUD
Tanzania TAN
Zambia ZAM
Zimbabwe ZIM

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 114 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 9.1 °C 13.0 °C 18.4 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 26.4 °C 29.2 °C 34.1 °C
Annual rainfall 511 mm 789 mm 1,133 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 2 mm 39 mm 169 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 114 research-grade observations of Bridelia cathartica 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 19 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.

  • Bridelia cathartica f. fischeri (Pax) Radcl.-Sm.
  • Bridelia cathartica f. melanthesoides (Klotzsch ex Baill.) Radcl.-Sm.
  • Bridelia cathartica f. niedenzui (Gehrm.) Radcl.-Sm.
  • Bridelia cathartica f. pubescens Radcl.-Sm.
  • Bridelia cathartica var. lingelsheimii (Gehrm.) Radcl.-Sm.
  • Bridelia cathartica var. melanthesoides (Klotzsch ex Baill.) Radcl.-Sm.
  • Bridelia fischeri Pax
  • Bridelia fischeri var. lingelsheimii (Gehrm.) Hutch.
  • Bridelia lingelsheimii Gehrm.
  • Bridelia melanthesoides (Klotzsch ex Baill.) Klotzsch
  • Bridelia melanthesoides var. lanceolata Gehrm.
  • Bridelia melanthesoides var. ovata Gehrm.
  • Bridelia melanthesoides var. typica Gehrm.
  • Bridelia niedenzui Gehrm.
  • Bridelia niedenzui var. njassae Gehrm.
  • Bridelia niedenzui var. pilosa Gehrm.
  • Bridelia niedenzui var. revoluta Gehrm.
  • Bridelia schlechteri Hutch.
  • Pentameria melanthesoides Klotzsch ex Baill.

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.