Plate 1 figs. a–d · 1 observation
This species has been photographed under an open licence only 1 time, 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.
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 68 botanical countries
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 99 observations
| Condition | 5th percentile | Median | 95th percentile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coldest month, mean daily low | 9.7 °C | 18.9 °C | 23.3 °C |
| Warmest month, mean daily high | 24.5 °C | 28.1 °C | 32.5 °C |
| Annual rainfall | 1,382 mm | 2,365 mm | 3,673 mm |
| Rainfall in the driest quarter | 41 mm | 283 mm | 514 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 99 research-grade observations of Grona adscendens 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 Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.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 29 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.
- Desmodium adscendens (Sw.) DC.
- Desmodium adscendens f. glabrescens Schindl.
- Desmodium adscendens var. robustum B.G.Schub.
- Desmodium adscendens var. trifoliastrum (Miq.) Schindl.
- Desmodium arinense Hoehne
- Desmodium caespitosum (Poir.) DC.
- Desmodium coeruleum G.Don
- Desmodium ellipticum Macfad.
- Desmodium glaucescens Miq.
- Desmodium obovatum Vogel
- Desmodium ovalifolium Guill. & Perr.
- Desmodium oxalidifolium Blume ex Miq.
- Desmodium oxalidifolium G.Don
- Desmodium racemiferum DC.
- Desmodium simplex G.Don
- Desmodium strangulatum Thwaites
- Desmodium thwaitesii Baker
- Desmodium trifoliastrum Miq.
- Desmodium vogelii Steud.
- Grona adscendens var. robusta (B.G.Schub.) H.Ohashi & K.Ohashi
- Hedysarum adscendens Sw.
- Hedysarum ascendens Lindl.
- Hedysarum caespitosum Poir.
- Hedysarum lindleyi Mart.
and 5 more.
Sourcesevery claim on this page
- World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
- iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
- USDA PLANTS Database. common name, checklist symbol DEAD. public domain. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
- 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.