Chlorophytum tuberosum(Roxb.) Baker

WFO wfo-0000763658 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Chlorophytum tuberosum, photographed by Dinesh Valke
fig. a Dinesh Valke, CC BY-SA 4.0 / 2012-06-17 / obs. 130195137
Chlorophytum tuberosum, photographed by Dinesh Valke
fig. b Dinesh Valke, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 127674802
Chlorophytum tuberosum, photographed by Dinesh Valke
fig. c Dinesh Valke, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 127649692
Chlorophytum tuberosum, photographed by Dinesh Valke
fig. d Dinesh Valke, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 122755740
Chlorophytum tuberosum, photographed by Dinesh Valke
fig. e Dinesh Valke, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 121293931
Chlorophytum tuberosum, photographed by Dinesh Valke
fig. f Dinesh Valke, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 121286741
Chlorophytum tuberosum, photographed by Dinesh Valke
fig. g Dinesh Valke, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 125851590
Chlorophytum tuberosum, photographed by S.MORE
fig. h S.MORE, CC0 1.0 / obs. 60179537

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
3898101
Filed as
Chlorophytum tuberosum (Roxb.) Baker
Det. by
C. S. Bjorå; C. F. Dalseng 2025-05-05
Collected
D. A. Burney 1984-11-02
Origin
KE
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 16 botanical countries

Regions where Chlorophytum tuberosum is native: Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan-South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, East Himalaya, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka CameroonCentral African RepublicChadEritreaEthiopiaKenyaNigeriaSomaliaSudan-South SudanTanzaniaUgandaEast HimalayaIndiaMyanmarNepalSri Lanka
Native distribution of Chlorophytum tuberosum, 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
Cameroon CMN AFRICA
Central African Republic CAF
Chad CHA
Eritrea ERI
Ethiopia ETH
Kenya KEN
Nigeria NGA
Somalia SOM
Sudan-South Sudan SUD
Tanzania TAN
Uganda UGA
East Himalaya EHM ASIA-TROPICAL
India IND
Myanmar MYA
Nepal NEP
Sri Lanka SRL

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 33 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 12.0 °C 17.0 °C 21.0 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 30.8 °C 34.0 °C 39.5 °C
Annual rainfall 657 mm 2,415 mm 3,907 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 1 mm 3 mm 25 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 33 research-grade observations of Chlorophytum tuberosum 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 14 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.

  • Acrospira lilioides A.Chev.
  • Anthericum kilimandscharicum Poelln.
  • Anthericum niveum (Poir.) Spreng.
  • Anthericum ornithogaloides Hochst. ex A.Rich.
  • Anthericum tuberosum Roxb.
  • Chlorophytum anthericoideum Dalzell
  • Chlorophytum kulsii Cufod.
  • Chlorophytum niveum (Poir.) M.R.Almeida
  • Chlorophytum russii Chiov.
  • Liliago nivea (Poir.) C.Presl
  • Liliago tuberosa (Roxb.) C.Presl
  • Phalangium niveum Poir.
  • Phalangium ornithogaloides (Hochst. ex A.Rich.) Schweinf.
  • Phalangium tuberosum (Roxb.) Kunth

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.