Elatostema radicans(Siebold & Zucc.) Wedd.

WFO wfo-0000665993 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Elatostema radicans, photographed by 何小花
fig. a 何小花, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-04-07 / obs. 186708689
Elatostema radicans, photographed by 葉子
fig. b 葉子, CC0 1.0 / obs. 111336270
Elatostema radicans, photographed by Jacy Chen
fig. c Jacy Chen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 110879982
Elatostema radicans, photographed by 黃美滿
fig. d 黃美滿, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 63730331
Elatostema radicans, photographed by lansan
fig. e lansan, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 67757328
Elatostema radicans, photographed by agujaceratops
fig. f agujaceratops, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 57364780
Elatostema radicans, photographed by Cheng-Tao Lin
fig. g Cheng-Tao Lin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 70127987
Elatostema radicans, photographed by 呂一起(Lyu yi-chi)
fig. h 呂一起(Lyu yi-chi), CC BY 4.0 / obs. 181924109

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 8 botanical countries

Regions where Elatostema radicans is native: China South-Central, China Southeast, Hainan, Japan, Korea, Nansei-shoto, Taiwan, Vietnam China South-CentralChina SoutheastHainanJapanTaiwanVietnam KoreaNansei-shoto
Native distribution of Elatostema radicans, 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
China South-Central CHC ASIA-TEMPERATE
China Southeast CHS
Hainan CHH
Japan JAP
Korea KOR
Nansei-shoto NNS
Taiwan TAI
Vietnam VIE ASIA-TROPICAL

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 447 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 1.8 °C 9.5 °C 12.6 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 18.8 °C 26.7 °C 29.6 °C
Annual rainfall 2,983 mm 4,340 mm 4,908 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 174 mm 706 mm 880 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 447 research-grade observations of Elatostema radicans 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 11 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.

  • Elatostema cavaleriei (H.Lév.) Hand.-Mazz.
  • Elatostema iseanum Makino ex Hatus.
  • Pellionia cavaleriei H.Lév.
  • Pellionia chikushiensis Yamam.
  • Pellionia iseana (Makino ex Hatus.) Hatus. ex Kimura
  • Pellionia okinawensis Hayata
  • Pellionia radicans (Siebold & Zucc.) Wedd.
  • Pellionia radicans f. grandis Gagnep.
  • Pellionia radicans var. chikushiensis (Yamam.) S.S.Ying
  • Pellionia radicans var. grandis (Gagnep.) W.T.Wang
  • Procris radicans Siebold & Zucc.

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.