Elephantopus mollisKunth

soft elephantsfoot

WFO wfo-0000012549 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Elephantopus mollis, photographed by 雲一百香果
fig. a 雲一百香果, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-05 / obs. 203431094
Elephantopus mollis, photographed by chiuluan
fig. b chiuluan, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 203252085
Elephantopus mollis, photographed by Florencia Grattarola
fig. c Florencia Grattarola, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 197932426
Elephantopus mollis, photographed by chiuluan
fig. d chiuluan, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 179244558
Elephantopus mollis, photographed by 四角銅鑼
fig. e 四角銅鑼, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 178102709
Elephantopus mollis, photographed by 雲一百香果
fig. f 雲一百香果, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 175355801
Elephantopus mollis, photographed by Andrés Ramírez-Barrera
fig. g Andrés Ramírez-Barrera, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 175326114
Elephantopus mollis, photographed by Licheng Shih
fig. h Licheng Shih, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 175697489

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 38 botanical countries

Regions where Elephantopus mollis is native: Mexico Central, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northeast, 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, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Leeward Is., Nicaragua, Panamá, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Suriname, Trinidad-Tobago, Uruguay, Venezuela, Windward Is. Mexico CentralMexico GulfMexico NortheastMexico NorthwestMexico SoutheastMexico SouthwestArgentina NortheastArgentina NorthwestBelizeBoliviaBrazil NorthBrazil NortheastBrazil SouthBrazil SoutheastBrazil West-CentralColombiaCosta RicaCubaDominican RepublicEcuadorEl SalvadorFrench GuianaGuatemalaGuyanaHaitiHondurasJamaicaNicaraguaPanamáParaguayPeruPuerto RicoSurinameTrinidad-TobagoUruguayVenezuela Leeward Is.Windward Is.
Native distribution of Elephantopus mollis, 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
Cuba CUB
Dominican Republic DOM
Ecuador ECU
El Salvador ELS
French Guiana FRG
Guatemala GUA
Guyana GUY
Haiti HAI
Honduras HON
Jamaica JAM
Leeward Is. LEE
Nicaragua NIC
Panamá PAN
Paraguay PAR
Peru PER
Puerto Rico PUE
Suriname SUR
Trinidad-Tobago TRT
Uruguay URU
Venezuela VEN
Windward Is. WIN
Mexico Central MXC NORTHERN AMERICA
Mexico Gulf MXG
Mexico Northeast MXE
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 160 in flower of 199 examined

Peak flowering in Feb. Each bar is the share of Elephantopus mollis 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. 160 of 199 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 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.

Where it actually grows measured, from 2,003 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 8.7 °C 12.7 °C 22.5 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 24.4 °C 28.7 °C 31.0 °C
Annual rainfall 1,184 mm 2,789 mm 4,345 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 71 mm 207 mm 650 mm

It is barely found anywhere that freezes. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 2,003 research-grade observations of Elephantopus mollis 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. Climate from CHELSA V2.1 (Karger et al. 2017); occurrences from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 19 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.

  • Asterocephalus cochinchinensis Spreng.
  • Elephantopus carolinianus var. mollis (Kunth) Beurl.
  • Elephantopus cernuus Vell.
  • Elephantopus cernuus Vell.Conc.
  • Elephantopus hypomalacus S.F.Blake
  • Elephantopus martii Graham ex Sch.Bip.
  • Elephantopus martii Graham
  • Elephantopus martii auct.non Graham & Niederl.
  • Elephantopus mollis var. bracteosus Domin
  • Elephantopus mollis var. capitulatus Domin
  • Elephantopus mollis var. mollis
  • Elephantopus pilosus Philipson
  • Elephantopus pilosus Philip.
  • Elephantopus scaber auct.non L.
  • Elephantopus scaber var. martii (Sch.Bip.) Hassk.
  • Elephantopus scaber var. tomentosus (L.) Sch.Bip.
  • Elephantopus scaber var. tomentosus (L.) Sch.Bip. ex Baker
  • Elephantopus sericeus Graham
  • Elephantopus serratus Blanco

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. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. 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.