Cardamine africanaL.

WFO wfo-0000586418 Accepted WFO 2026-06 6 photographs CC0 / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–f · 2 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 2 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.

Cardamine africana, photographed by Jimmy Whatmore
fig. a Jimmy Whatmore, CC0 1.0 / 2022-02-03 / obs. 178206073
Cardamine africana, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. b Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 104700179
Cardamine africana, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. c Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 104700170
Cardamine africana, photographed by Jimmy Whatmore
fig. d Jimmy Whatmore, CC0 1.0 / obs. 178205686
Cardamine africana, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. e Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 104700189
Cardamine africana, photographed by Jimmy Whatmore
fig. f Jimmy Whatmore, CC0 1.0 / obs. 178206074

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 29 botanical countries

Regions where Cardamine africana is native: Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Provinces, Comoros, DR Congo, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Free State, Gulf of Guinea Is., Kenya, KwaZulu-Natal, Madagascar, Northern Provinces, Réunion, Rwanda, Sudan-South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Yemen, East Himalaya, India, Jawa, Lesser Sunda Is., Maluku, New Guinea, Sri Lanka, Sumatera, Cuba BurundiCameroonCape ProvincesDR CongoEswatiniEthiopiaFree StateGulf of Guinea Is.KenyaKwaZulu-NatalMadagascarNorthern ProvincesRwandaSudan-South SudanTanzaniaUgandaZimbabweYemenEast HimalayaIndiaJawaLesser Sunda Is.MalukuNew GuineaSri LankaSumateraCuba ComorosRéunion
Native distribution of Cardamine africana, 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
Burundi BUR AFRICA
Cameroon CMN
Cape Provinces CPP
Comoros COM
DR Congo ZAI
Eswatini SWZ
Ethiopia ETH
Free State OFS
Gulf of Guinea Is. GGI
Kenya KEN
KwaZulu-Natal NAT
Madagascar MDG
Northern Provinces TVL
Réunion REU
Rwanda RWA
Sudan-South Sudan SUD
Tanzania TAN
Uganda UGA
Zimbabwe ZIM
East Himalaya EHM ASIA-TROPICAL
India IND
Jawa JAW
Lesser Sunda Is. LSI
Maluku MOL
New Guinea NWG
Sri Lanka SRL
Sumatera SUM
Yemen YEM ASIA-TEMPERATE
Cuba CUB SOUTHERN AMERICA

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 38 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 2.2 °C 7.8 °C 10.9 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 19.4 °C 22.7 °C 25.3 °C
Annual rainfall 590 mm 1,200 mm 2,371 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 28 mm 83 mm 243 mm

It is found where winters are cool but frost is light or absent. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 38 research-grade observations of Cardamine africana 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 22 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.

  • Cardamine africana subsp. africana
  • Cardamine africana subsp. borbonica (Bojer) O.E.Schulz
  • Cardamine africana var. allevia (Comm. ex DC.) O.E.Schulz
  • Cardamine africana var. arabica (DC.) O.E.Schulz
  • Cardamine allevia Comm. ex DC.
  • Cardamine anteniquana Burch. ex DC.
  • Cardamine borbonica Pers.
  • Cardamine borbonica var. allevia Comm. ex DC.
  • Cardamine borbonica var. arabica DC.
  • Cardamine burchellii Spreng.
  • Cardamine hirsuta var. major Thwaites
  • Cardamine holtziana Engl. & O.E.Schulz ex O.E.Schulz
  • Cardamine holziana Engl. & O.E.Schulz
  • Cardamine innovans O.E.Schulz
  • Cardamine javanica Miq.
  • Cardamine laxa var. pumila A.Gray
  • Cardamine ovata var. unijuga O.E.Schulz
  • Cardamine porphyrophylla Ekman ex Urb.
  • Cardamine rubifolia Sm. ex DC.
  • Cardamine ternata Bory ex DC.
  • Cardamine wightiana Wall.
  • Pteroneurum javanicum Blume

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.