Calliandra calothyrsusMeisn.

WFO wfo-0001050431 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Calliandra calothyrsus, photographed by geralg
fig. a geralg, CC0 1.0 / 2019-09-03 / obs. 50621225

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 11 botanical countries

Regions where Calliandra calothyrsus is native: Mexico Northeast, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southeast, Mexico Southwest, Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panamá Mexico NortheastMexico NorthwestMexico SoutheastMexico SouthwestBelizeCosta RicaEl SalvadorGuatemalaHondurasNicaraguaPanamá
Native distribution of Calliandra calothyrsus, 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
Belize BLZ SOUTHERN AMERICA
Costa Rica COS
El Salvador ELS
Guatemala GUA
Honduras HON
Nicaragua NIC
Panamá PAN
Mexico Northeast MXE NORTHERN AMERICA
Mexico Northwest MXN
Mexico Southeast MXT
Mexico Southwest MXS

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 116 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 12.6 °C 15.1 °C 21.2 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 23.2 °C 28.1 °C 31.2 °C
Annual rainfall 1,139 mm 1,899 mm 4,169 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 37 mm 220 mm 552 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 116 research-grade observations of Calliandra calothyrsus 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 10 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.

  • Anneslia acapulcensis Britton & Rose
  • Anneslia calothyrsa (Meisn.) Kleinhoonte
  • Anneslia confusa (Sprague & L.Riley) Britton & Rose
  • Anneslia similis (Sprague & L.Riley) Britton & Rose
  • Calliandra acapulcensis (Britton & Rose) Standl.
  • Calliandra confusa Sprague & L.Riley
  • Calliandra houstoniana var. acapulcensis (Britton & Rose) Barneby
  • Calliandra houstoniana var. calothyrsus (Meisn.) Barneby
  • Calliandra similis Sprague & L.Riley
  • Feuilleea calothyrsa (Meisn.) Kuntze

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.