Capraria bifloraL.

goatweed

WFO wfo-0000585310 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Capraria biflora, photographed by Natalie Waddell-Rutter
fig. a Natalie Waddell-Rutter, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-03-09 / obs. 183537776

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
842842
Filed as
Capraria biflora L.
Det. by
J. Williams; B. L. Turner 1996-07-30
Collected
R. O. Woodbury 1968-02-22
Origin
PR
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 45 botanical countries

Regions where Capraria biflora is native: Mexico Central, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southeast, Mexico Southwest, Argentina Northeast, Argentina Northwest, Aruba, Bahamas, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil North, Brazil Northeast, Brazil Southeast, Brazil West-Central, Cayman Is., Central American Pacific Is., Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Galápagos, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Leeward Is., Netherlands Antilles, Nicaragua, Panamá, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Southwest Caribbean, Suriname, Trinidad-Tobago, Turks-Caicos Is., Venezuela, Venezuelan Antilles, Windward Is. Mexico CentralMexico GulfMexico NortheastMexico NorthwestMexico SoutheastMexico SouthwestArgentina NortheastArgentina NorthwestBelizeBoliviaBrazil NorthBrazil NortheastBrazil SoutheastBrazil West-CentralCentral American Pacific Is.ColombiaCosta RicaCubaDominican RepublicEcuadorEl SalvadorFrench GuianaGuatemalaGuyanaHaitiHondurasJamaicaNicaraguaPanamáParaguayPeruPuerto RicoSouthwest CaribbeanSurinameTrinidad-TobagoVenezuela ArubaBahamasCayman Is.GalápagosLeeward Is.Netherlands AntillesTurks-Caicos Is.Venezuelan AntillesWindward Is.
Native distribution of Capraria biflora, 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
Argentina Northeast AGE SOUTHERN AMERICA
Argentina Northwest AGW
Aruba ARU
Bahamas BAH
Belize BLZ
Bolivia BOL
Brazil North BZN
Brazil Northeast BZE
Brazil Southeast BZL
Brazil West-Central BZC
Cayman Is. CAY
Central American Pacific Is. CPI
Colombia CLM
Costa Rica COS
Cuba CUB
Dominican Republic DOM
Ecuador ECU
El Salvador ELS
French Guiana FRG
Galápagos GAL
Guatemala GUA
Guyana GUY
Haiti HAI
Honduras HON
Jamaica JAM
Leeward Is. LEE
Netherlands Antilles NLA
Nicaragua NIC
Panamá PAN
Paraguay PAR
Peru PER
Puerto Rico PUE
Southwest Caribbean SWC
Suriname SUR
Trinidad-Tobago TRT
Turks-Caicos Is. TCI
Venezuela VEN
Venezuelan Antilles VNA
Windward Is. WIN
Mexico Central MXC NORTHERN AMERICA
Mexico Gulf MXG
Mexico Northeast MXE
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.

Flowering 83 in flower of 86 examined

Proportion of examined Capraria biflora in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 14 14 100% 78% to 100%
Feb 17 17 100% 82% to 100%
Mar 7 7 100% 65% to 100%
Apr 4 4 too few examined
May 11 11 100% 74% to 100%
Jun 1 2 too few examined
Jul 2 2 too few examined
Aug 1 1 too few examined
Sep 0 0 too few examined
Oct 2 3 too few examined
Nov 9 10 90% 60% to 98%
Dec 15 15 100% 80% to 100%

Peak flowering in Jan. Each bar is the share of Capraria biflora observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 83 of 86 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 6 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

When it blooms, where you are 1 state

StatePeaksObservations in flower
Florida Jan 64

Where it actually grows measured, from 892 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 15.9 °C 20.0 °C 25.0 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 28.0 °C 29.1 °C 32.3 °C
Annual rainfall 627 mm 1,235 mm 1,762 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 54 mm 143 mm 245 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 892 research-grade observations of Capraria biflora 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. Climate from CHELSA V2.1 (Karger et al. 2017); occurrences from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 11 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.

  • Capraria biflora f. hirta Loes.
  • Capraria biflora var. pilosa Griseb.
  • Capraria hirsuta Kunth
  • Capraria lanceolata Vahl
  • Capraria semiserrata Willd.
  • Capraria semiserrata Vahl
  • Capraria semiserrata var. berterii A.DC. ex Benth.
  • Capraria semiserrata var. berteroi A.DC. ex Benth.
  • Xuarezia biflora Ruiz & Pav.
  • Xuarezia hirsuta (Kunth) Kuntze
  • Xuarezia semiserrata (Vahl) 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. 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.