Croton hirtusL'Hér.

WFO wfo-0000931249 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Croton hirtus, photographed by Sunday Berlioz KAKPO
fig. a Sunday Berlioz KAKPO, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-09 / obs. 196244406
Croton hirtus, photographed by Ong Jyh Seng
fig. b Ong Jyh Seng, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 150399584
Croton hirtus, photographed by Ong Jyh Seng
fig. c Ong Jyh Seng, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 130179953
Croton hirtus, photographed by Ong Jyh Seng
fig. d Ong Jyh Seng, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 108583744
Croton hirtus, photographed by Macelo Costa
fig. e Macelo Costa, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 61603681
Croton hirtus, photographed by ONG SOS Biodiversity
fig. f ONG SOS Biodiversity, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 55119834
Croton hirtus, photographed by Manoj Karingamadathil
fig. g Manoj Karingamadathil, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 48344753
Croton hirtus, photographed by Paulo Nogueira
fig. h Paulo Nogueira, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 179244776

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 32 botanical countries

Regions where Croton hirtus is native: Mexico Central, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southeast, Mexico Southwest, Argentina Northeast, Argentina Northwest, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil North, Brazil Northeast, Brazil South, Brazil Southeast, Brazil West-Central, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Jamaica, Leeward Is., Nicaragua, Panamá, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Trinidad-Tobago, Venezuela, Windward Is. Mexico CentralMexico GulfMexico NorthwestMexico SoutheastMexico SouthwestArgentina NortheastArgentina NorthwestBelizeBoliviaBrazil NorthBrazil NortheastBrazil SouthBrazil SoutheastBrazil West-CentralColombiaCosta RicaEcuadorEl SalvadorFrench GuianaGuatemalaGuyanaHondurasJamaicaNicaraguaPanamáParaguayPeruSurinameTrinidad-TobagoVenezuela Leeward Is.Windward Is.
Native distribution of Croton hirtus, 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
Belize BLZ
Bolivia BOL
Brazil North BZN
Brazil Northeast BZE
Brazil South BZS
Brazil Southeast BZL
Brazil West-Central BZC
Colombia CLM
Costa Rica COS
Ecuador ECU
El Salvador ELS
French Guiana FRG
Guatemala GUA
Guyana GUY
Honduras HON
Jamaica JAM
Leeward Is. LEE
Nicaragua NIC
Panamá PAN
Paraguay PAR
Peru PER
Suriname SUR
Trinidad-Tobago TRT
Venezuela VEN
Windward Is. WIN
Mexico Central MXC NORTHERN AMERICA
Mexico Gulf MXG
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 72 in flower of 73 examined

Peak flowering in Jan. Each bar is the share of Croton hirtus 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. 72 of 73 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 5 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.

Also published as 12 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.

  • Brachystachys hirta (L'Hér.) Klotzsch
  • Croton comes Standl. & L.O.Williams
  • Croton glandulosus subsp. hirtus (L'Hér.) Croizat
  • Croton glandulosus var. cordovensis Müll.Arg.
  • Croton glandulosus var. hirtus (L'Hér.) Müll.Arg.
  • Croton glandulosus var. martii Müll.Arg.
  • Croton glandulosus var. sagotii Müll.Arg.
  • Croton glandulosus var. schomburgkianus Müll.Arg.
  • Croton glandulosus var. sieberi Müll.Arg.
  • Croton glandulosus var. tenellus Müll.Arg.
  • Oxydectes glandulosa var. hirta (L'Hér.) Kuntze
  • Podostachys hirta Klotzsch

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.