Cantinoa americana(Aubl.) Harley & J.F.B.Pastore

American bushmint

WFO wfo-0001333521 Accepted WFO 2026-06 3 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–c · 1 observation

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 1 time, 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.

Cantinoa americana, photographed by Jay Horn
fig. a Jay Horn, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-11-08 / obs. 167976426
Cantinoa americana, photographed by Jay Horn
fig. b Jay Horn, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 167976453
Cantinoa americana, photographed by Jay Horn
fig. c Jay Horn, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 167976474

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
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Accession
K000735455
Filed as
Cantinoa americana (Aubl.) Harley & J.F.B.Pastore
Det. by
Dr Ray Harley
Collected
Bernacci et al.
Origin
BR
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 26 botanical countries

Regions where Cantinoa americana is native: Florida, Mexico Southeast, Mexico Southwest, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil North, Brazil Northeast, Brazil Southeast, Brazil West-Central, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, French Guiana, Galápagos, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Panamá, Peru, Puerto Rico, Venezuela FloridaMexico SoutheastMexico SouthwestBelizeBoliviaBrazil NorthBrazil NortheastBrazil SoutheastBrazil West-CentralColombiaCosta RicaCubaDominican RepublicEcuadorFrench GuianaGuatemalaGuyanaHaitiHondurasJamaicaNicaraguaPanamáPeruPuerto RicoVenezuela Galápagos
Native distribution of Cantinoa americana, 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
Belize BLZ SOUTHERN AMERICA
Bolivia BOL
Brazil North BZN
Brazil Northeast BZE
Brazil Southeast BZL
Brazil West-Central BZC
Colombia CLM
Costa Rica COS
Cuba CUB
Dominican Republic DOM
Ecuador ECU
French Guiana FRG
Galápagos GAL
Guatemala GUA
Guyana GUY
Haiti HAI
Honduras HON
Jamaica JAM
Nicaragua NIC
Panamá PAN
Peru PER
Puerto Rico PUE
Venezuela VEN
Florida FLA NORTHERN AMERICA
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 67 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 12.5 °C 16.9 °C 20.1 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 29.3 °C 34.0 °C 40.5 °C
Annual rainfall 668 mm 1,151 mm 2,041 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 0 mm 4 mm 139 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 67 research-grade observations of Cantinoa americana 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 17 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.

  • Hyptis americana (Aubl.) Urb.
  • Hyptis gonocephala C.Wright ex Griseb.
  • Hyptis hispida Poepp. ex J.A.Schmidt
  • Hyptis lophantha Mart. ex Benth.
  • Hyptis madagascariensis Bojer
  • Hyptis menthodora Schrank ex J.A.Schmidt
  • Hyptis pohliana Jacq. ex Benth.
  • Hyptis spicigera Lam.
  • Hyptis subverticillata Andersson
  • Leucas microscypha Baker
  • Mesosphaerum gonocephalum (C.Wright ex Griseb.) Kuntze
  • Mesosphaerum lophanthus (Mart. ex Benth.) Kuntze
  • Mesosphaerum menthodorum (Schrank ex J.A.Schmidt) Kuntze
  • Mesosphaerum spicigerum (Lam.) Kuntze
  • Mesosphaerum subverticillatum (Andersson) Kuntze
  • Nepeta americana Aubl.
  • Pycnanthemum elongatum Blanco

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. USDA PLANTS Database. common name, checklist symbol HYAM3. public domain. 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.