Euploca humilis(L.) Feuillet

bushy heliotrope

WFO wfo-0001344901 Accepted WFO 2026-06 3 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–c · 2 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 2 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.

Euploca humilis, photographed by Abby Darrah
fig. a Abby Darrah, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-03-15 / obs. 183063579
Euploca humilis, photographed by Alan Weakley
fig. b Alan Weakley, CC0 1.0 / obs. 195891462
Euploca humilis, photographed by Alan Weakley
fig. c Alan Weakley, CC0 1.0 / obs. 195891521

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.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
The New York Botanical Garden
Accession
03837310
Filed as
Euploca humilis (L.) Feuillet
Det. by
C. P. G. Feuillet 2015-03-01
Collected
not recorded
Origin
not recorded
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 30 botanical countries

Regions where Euploca humilis is native: Mexico Central, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southeast, Mexico Southwest, Aruba, Bahamas, Bolivia, Brazil North, Brazil Northeast, Brazil Southeast, Brazil West-Central, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Leeward Is., Netherlands Antilles, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, Trinidad-Tobago, Venezuela, Venezuelan Antilles, Windward Is. Mexico CentralMexico GulfMexico NortheastMexico NorthwestMexico SoutheastMexico SouthwestBoliviaBrazil NorthBrazil NortheastBrazil SoutheastBrazil West-CentralColombiaCosta RicaCubaDominican RepublicEl SalvadorGuatemalaGuyanaHaitiHondurasNicaraguaPuerto RicoTrinidad-TobagoVenezuela ArubaBahamasLeeward Is.Netherlands AntillesVenezuelan AntillesWindward Is.
Native distribution of Euploca humilis, 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
Aruba ARU SOUTHERN AMERICA
Bahamas BAH
Bolivia BOL
Brazil North BZN
Brazil Northeast BZE
Brazil Southeast BZL
Brazil West-Central BZC
Colombia CLM
Costa Rica COS
Cuba CUB
Dominican Republic DOM
El Salvador ELS
Guatemala GUA
Guyana GUY
Haiti HAI
Honduras HON
Leeward Is. LEE
Netherlands Antilles NLA
Nicaragua NIC
Puerto Rico PUE
Trinidad-Tobago TRT
Venezuela VEN
Venezuelan Antilles VNA
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.

Where it actually grows measured, from 79 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 19.1 °C 24.1 °C 25.0 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 27.6 °C 28.2 °C 33.7 °C
Annual rainfall 613 mm 1,157 mm 2,096 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 31 mm 129 mm 256 mm

It is not found anywhere that gets close to freezing. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 79 research-grade observations of Euploca humilis 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 26 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.

  • Euploca ternata (Vahl) J.I.M.Melo & Semir
  • Heliotropium fruticosum var. angustilobum DC.
  • Heliotropium fruticosum var. confertum DC.
  • Heliotropium fruticosum var. hispidum (Kunth) DC.
  • Heliotropium fruticosum var. ternatum (Vahl) DC.
  • Heliotropium fumana (Fresen.) Gürke
  • Heliotropium greenmanii Wiggins
  • Heliotropium hirtum Lehm.
  • Heliotropium hispidum Kunth
  • Heliotropium mexicanum Greenm.
  • Heliotropium mexicanum Sessé & Moc.
  • Heliotropium oaxacanum DC.
  • Heliotropium ottoni Lehm.
  • Heliotropium ottonianum Roem. & Schult.
  • Heliotropium ottonis Lehm.
  • Heliotropium strictum Kunth
  • Heliotropium ternatum Vahl
  • Heliotropium ternatum var. fumana (Fresen.) I.M.Johnst.
  • Messerschmidia incana G.Mey.
  • Pioctonon ternatum Raf.
  • Schleidenia fumana Fresen.
  • Schleidenia hispida (Kunth) Fresen.
  • Tournefortia humilis L.
  • Tournefortia meyeri DC.

and 2 more.

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 HETE10. 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.