Dianthera americanaL.

American water-willow

WFO wfo-0000642825 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h

Dianthera americana, photographed by Clay Gibbons
fig. a Clay Gibbons, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-05 / obs. 203709079
Dianthera americana, photographed by Clay Gibbons
fig. b Clay Gibbons, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203322696
Dianthera americana, photographed by Brian Finzel
fig. c Brian Finzel, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 199475029
Dianthera americana, photographed by saltyhiker
fig. d saltyhiker, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 197680356
Dianthera americana, photographed by Zakqary Roy
fig. e Zakqary Roy, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 199847891
Dianthera americana, photographed by saltyhiker
fig. f saltyhiker, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 196250570
Dianthera americana, photographed by Michelle W. （鍾偉瑋）
fig. g Michelle W. （鍾偉瑋）, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 195204783
Dianthera americana, photographed by Annika Lindqvist
fig. h Annika Lindqvist, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 194906243

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.

Flowering n = 1,448 observations

Peak flowering in Jun, from 1,448 community-annotated observations worldwide. This is a global aggregate, not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres, and citizen-science records cluster near cities, at weekends, and in spring. Where a species has fewer than 30 annotated records we do not draw this chart at all.

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.

  • Dianthera americana var. subcoriacea (Fernald) Shinners
  • Dianthera ensiformis Walter
  • Dianthera formosa Raf.
  • Dianthera heterophyla Raf.
  • Dianthera linearifolia (Lam.) Raf.
  • Dianthera linearifolia (Torr.) Benth. & Hook.f. ex B.D.Jacks.
  • Dianthera longifolia Raf.
  • Dianthera repanda Raf.
  • Dicliptera americana (L.) Alph.Wood
  • Ecbolium americanum (L.) Kuntze
  • Gendarussa pedunculosa C.Presl
  • Justicia americana (L.) Vahl
  • Justicia americana var. americana
  • Justicia americana var. subcoriacea Fernald
  • Justicia ensiformis (Walter) Forsyth f.
  • Justicia linearifolia Lam.
  • Justicia mortuifluminis Fernald
  • Justicia mortuifluminis Fernald
  • Justicia pedunculosa Michx.
  • Justicia umbratilis Fernald
  • Rhytiglossa ensiformis Alph.Wood
  • Rhytiglossa pedunculosa Nees

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.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice, no toxicity claim and no native range, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.