Elytraria imbricata(Vahl) Pers.

purple scalystem

WFO wfo-0000666727 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Elytraria imbricata, photographed by Liliana Ramírez-Freire
fig. a Liliana Ramírez-Freire, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-04-30 / obs. 194003921
Elytraria imbricata, photographed by Casey H. Richart
fig. b Casey H. Richart, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 194513266
Elytraria imbricata, photographed by Diana Fuentes
fig. c Diana Fuentes, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 184421318
Elytraria imbricata, photographed by Dante S. Figueroa
fig. d Dante S. Figueroa, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 177046151
Elytraria imbricata, photographed by Bill Levine
fig. e Bill Levine, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 175650141
Elytraria imbricata, photographed by Abraham Sánchez Romero
fig. f Abraham Sánchez Romero, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 172827759
Elytraria imbricata, photographed by Ben Costamagna
fig. g Ben Costamagna, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 169453554
Elytraria imbricata, photographed by Viacheslav Shalisko
fig. h Viacheslav Shalisko, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 120119151

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 31 botanical countries

Regions where Elytraria imbricata is native: Arizona, Mexican Pacific Is., Mexico Central, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southeast, Mexico Southwest, New Mexico, Texas, Argentina Northwest, Aruba, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil North, Brazil Northeast, Brazil Southeast, Brazil West-Central, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Netherlands Antilles, Nicaragua, Panamá, Peru, Trinidad-Tobago, Venezuela ArizonaMexico CentralMexico GulfMexico NortheastMexico NorthwestMexico SoutheastMexico SouthwestNew MexicoTexasArgentina NorthwestBelizeBoliviaBrazil NorthBrazil NortheastBrazil SoutheastBrazil West-CentralColombiaCosta RicaEcuadorEl SalvadorGuatemalaHaitiHondurasNicaraguaPanamáPeruTrinidad-TobagoVenezuela ArubaNetherlands Antilles
Native distribution of Elytraria imbricata, 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 Northwest AGW SOUTHERN AMERICA
Aruba ARU
Belize BLZ
Bolivia BOL
Brazil North BZN
Brazil Northeast BZE
Brazil Southeast BZL
Brazil West-Central BZC
Colombia CLM
Costa Rica COS
Ecuador ECU
El Salvador ELS
Guatemala GUA
Haiti HAI
Honduras HON
Netherlands Antilles NLA
Nicaragua NIC
Panamá PAN
Peru PER
Trinidad-Tobago TRT
Venezuela VEN
Arizona ARI NORTHERN AMERICA
Mexican Pacific Is. MXI
Mexico Central MXC
Mexico Gulf MXG
Mexico Northeast MXE
Mexico Northwest MXN
Mexico Southeast MXT
Mexico Southwest MXS
New Mexico NWM
Texas TEX

Not drawn on the map: Mexican Pacific Is.. We hold no public-domain boundary for this region, so it is listed rather than guessed at.

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 218 in flower of 222 examined

Peak flowering in Apr. Each bar is the share of Elytraria imbricata 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. 218 of 222 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 3 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 20 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.

  • Cymburus squamosus (Jacq.) Raf.
  • Dicliptera ramentacea Spreng. ex Nees
  • Elytraria amara Blanco
  • Elytraria apargifolia Nees
  • Elytraria apargiifolia Nees
  • Elytraria caulescens Ledeb.
  • Elytraria fasciculata Kunth
  • Elytraria frondosa Kunth
  • Elytraria microstachya Oerst.
  • Elytraria pachystachya Oerst.
  • Elytraria ramosa Kunth
  • Elytraria scorpioides Schult.
  • Elytraria squamosa (Jacq.) Lindau
  • Elytraria tridentata Vahl
  • Elytraria tridentata var. caulescens Nees
  • Elytraria tridentata var. wrightii M.Gómez
  • Justicia imbricata Vahl
  • Tubiflora pachystachya (Oerst.) Kuntze
  • Tubiflora squamosa (Jacq.) Kuntze
  • Verbena squamosa Jacq.

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.