Elytraria caroliniensis(J.F.Gmel.) Pers.

Carolina scalystem

WFO wfo-1000046802 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 5 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 5 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.

Elytraria caroliniensis, photographed by Athena Philips
fig. a Athena Philips, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-08-15 / obs. 151074659
Elytraria caroliniensis, photographed by Adam Pitcher
fig. b Adam Pitcher, CC0 1.0 / obs. 76599832
Elytraria caroliniensis, photographed by Laura Gaudette
fig. c Laura Gaudette, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 19640026
Elytraria caroliniensis, photographed by Athena Philips
fig. d Athena Philips, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 151074732
Elytraria caroliniensis, photographed by Adam Pitcher
fig. e Adam Pitcher, CC0 1.0 / obs. 76599846
Elytraria caroliniensis, photographed by Laura Gaudette
fig. f Laura Gaudette, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 19640027
Elytraria caroliniensis, photographed by Siddarth Machado
fig. g Siddarth Machado, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 45241740
Elytraria caroliniensis, photographed by Jay Horn
fig. h Jay Horn, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 87437923

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 3 botanical countries

Regions where Elytraria caroliniensis is native: Florida, Georgia, South Carolina FloridaGeorgiaSouth Carolina
Native distribution of Elytraria caroliniensis, 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
Florida FLA NORTHERN AMERICA
Georgia GEO
South Carolina SCA

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.

Also published as 14 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.

  • Elytraria angustifolia (Fernald) Leonard
  • Elytraria caroliniensis var. angustifolia (Fernald) S.F.Blake
  • Elytraria caroliniensis var. vahliana (Michx.) D.B.Ward
  • Elytraria cupressina Nees
  • Elytraria herbacea Michx. ex Nees
  • Elytraria vahliana Michx.
  • Elytraria virgata Michx.
  • Elytraria virgata var. angustifolia Fernald
  • Elytraria virgata var. latifolia Nees
  • Elytraria virgata var. vahliana (Michx.) Nees
  • Justicia squamosa Sol. ex Roem. & Schult.
  • Tubiflora angustifolia (Fernald) Small
  • Tubiflora caroliniensis J.F.Gmel.
  • Tubiflora caroliniensis var. angustifolia (Fernald) Small

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. USDA PLANTS Database. common name, checklist symbol ELCA6. public domain. 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.