Flagellaria guineensisSchumach.

WFO wfo-0000424772 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Flagellaria guineensis, photographed by Suvarna Parbhoo Mohan
fig. a Suvarna Parbhoo Mohan, CC BY-SA 4.0 / 2021-10-24 / obs. 165427964
Flagellaria guineensis, photographed by Margaret Burger
fig. b Margaret Burger, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 142358252
Flagellaria guineensis, photographed by Rosemary Harrison
fig. c Rosemary Harrison, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 132377004
Flagellaria guineensis, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. d Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 46736649
Flagellaria guineensis, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. e Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 17367234
Flagellaria guineensis, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. f Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 19265331
Flagellaria guineensis, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. g Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 19264428
Flagellaria guineensis, photographed by Rosemary Harrison
fig. h Rosemary Harrison, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 142340660

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 24 botanical countries

Regions where Flagellaria guineensis is native: Angola, Benin, Cameroon, Cape Provinces, Central African Republic, Congo, DR Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Kenya, KwaZulu-Natal, Liberia, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Nigeria, Northern Provinces, Somalia, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka AngolaBeninCameroonCape ProvincesCentral African RepublicCongoDR CongoGabonGhanaIvory CoastKenyaKwaZulu-NatalLiberiaMadagascarMozambiqueNigeriaNorthern ProvincesSomaliaTanzaniaTogoUgandaZimbabweSri Lanka Mauritius
Native distribution of Flagellaria guineensis, 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
Angola ANG AFRICA
Benin BEN
Cameroon CMN
Cape Provinces CPP
Central African Republic CAF
Congo CON
DR Congo ZAI
Gabon GAB
Ghana GHA
Ivory Coast IVO
Kenya KEN
KwaZulu-Natal NAT
Liberia LBR
Madagascar MDG
Mauritius MAU
Mozambique MOZ
Nigeria NGA
Northern Provinces TVL
Somalia SOM
Tanzania TAN
Togo TOG
Uganda UGA
Zimbabwe ZIM
Sri Lanka SRL 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 209 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 9.7 °C 14.4 °C 18.6 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 25.5 °C 26.3 °C 29.0 °C
Annual rainfall 905 mm 1,017 mm 1,266 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 93 mm 110 mm 163 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 209 research-grade observations of Flagellaria guineensis 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 3 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.

  • Flagellaria indica f. angustifolia (Bojer) H.Perrier
  • Flagellaria indica var. angustifolia Bojer
  • Flagellaria indica var. guineensis (Schumach.) Engl.

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.