Coleus monostachyus(P.Beauv.) A.J.Paton

WFO wfo-1000031605 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Coleus monostachyus, photographed by Ong Jyh Seng
fig. a Ong Jyh Seng, CC BY-SA 4.0 / 2021-04-30 / obs. 123945359
Coleus monostachyus, photographed by Ong Jyh Seng
fig. b Ong Jyh Seng, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 121937097
Coleus monostachyus, photographed by Ong Jyh Seng
fig. c Ong Jyh Seng, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 67567832
Coleus monostachyus, photographed by Ong Jyh Seng
fig. d Ong Jyh Seng, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 60226527
Coleus monostachyus, photographed by Ong Jyh Seng
fig. e Ong Jyh Seng, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 53104971
Coleus monostachyus, photographed by Ong Jyh Seng
fig. f Ong Jyh Seng, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 53104905
Coleus monostachyus, photographed by Ong Jyh Seng
fig. g Ong Jyh Seng, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 51513725
Coleus monostachyus, photographed by Guillaume Delaitre
fig. h Guillaume Delaitre, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 163991760

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
K000051065
Filed as
Coleus monostachyus subsp. monostachyus
Det. by
Pollard, B.J.
Collected
Cheek, M. 1998-02-12
Origin
CM
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 21 botanical countries

Regions where Coleus monostachyus is native: Burkina, Cabinda, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, DR Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Gulf of Guinea Is., Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sudan-South Sudan, Togo BurkinaCabindaCameroonCentral African RepublicChadCongoDR CongoEquatorial GuineaGabonGhanaGuineaGuinea-BissauGulf of Guinea Is.Ivory CoastLiberiaMaliNigeriaSenegalSierra LeoneSudan-South SudanTogo
Native distribution of Coleus monostachyus, 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
Burkina BKN AFRICA
Cabinda CAB
Cameroon CMN
Central African Republic CAF
Chad CHA
Congo CON
DR Congo ZAI
Equatorial Guinea EQG
Gabon GAB
Ghana GHA
Guinea GUI
Guinea-Bissau GNB
Gulf of Guinea Is. GGI
Ivory Coast IVO
Liberia LBR
Mali MLI
Nigeria NGA
Senegal SEN
Sierra Leone SIE
Sudan-South Sudan SUD
Togo TOG

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 282 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 19.1 °C 23.1 °C 24.8 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 28.1 °C 29.6 °C 32.6 °C
Annual rainfall 1,885 mm 2,566 mm 3,947 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 62 mm 483 mm 585 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 282 research-grade observations of Coleus monostachyus 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 15 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.

  • Coleus africanus Benth.
  • Ocimum monostachyum P.Beauv.
  • Plectranthus monostachyus (P.Beauv.) B.J.Pollard
  • Plectranthus monostachyus subsp. marrubiifolius (Brenan) B.J.Pollard
  • Plectranthus monostachyus subsp. perennis (J.K.Morton) B.J.Pollard
  • Plectranthus palisotii Benth.
  • Solenostemon africanus Briq.
  • Solenostemon gouanensis A.Chev.
  • Solenostemon monostachyus (P.Beauv.) Briq.
  • Solenostemon monostachyus subsp. marrubifolius (Brenan) J.K.Morton
  • Solenostemon monostachyus subsp. perennis J.K.Morton
  • Solenostemon monostachyus var. amplifrons Briq.
  • Solenostemon monostachyus var. marrubiifolius Brenan
  • Solenostemon ocymoides Schumach. & Thonn.
  • Solenostemon ocymoides var. monostachyus (P.Beauv.) Baker

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.