Haworthiopsis viscosa(L.) Gildenh. & Klopper

WFO wfo-0001345979 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Haworthiopsis viscosa, photographed by Andrew Childs
fig. a Andrew Childs, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-04-16 / obs. 190231531
Haworthiopsis viscosa, photographed by Matt Berger
fig. b Matt Berger, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 162088247
Haworthiopsis viscosa, photographed by Tim Kirsten
fig. c Tim Kirsten, CC0 1.0 / obs. 155134505
Haworthiopsis viscosa, photographed by Tim Kirsten
fig. d Tim Kirsten, CC0 1.0 / obs. 155140322
Haworthiopsis viscosa, photographed by Ludwig Muller
fig. e Ludwig Muller, CC0 1.0 / obs. 108496351
Haworthiopsis viscosa, photographed by James Deacon
fig. f James Deacon, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 102988348
Haworthiopsis viscosa, photographed by Ludwig Muller
fig. g Ludwig Muller, CC0 1.0 / obs. 91613149
Haworthiopsis viscosa, photographed by Christiaan Viljoen
fig. h Christiaan Viljoen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 175279728

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 1 botanical country

Regions where Haworthiopsis viscosa is native: Cape Provinces Cape Provinces
Native distribution of Haworthiopsis viscosa, 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
Cape Provinces CPP AFRICA

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 172 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 3.6 °C 5.5 °C 6.8 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 26.5 °C 29.8 °C 31.1 °C
Annual rainfall 235 mm 350 mm 527 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 39 mm 65 mm 100 mm

It is found where winters are cool but frost is light or absent. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 172 research-grade observations of Haworthiopsis viscosa 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 33 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.

  • Aloe asperiuscula (Haw.) Schult. & Schult.f.
  • Aloe concinna (Haw.) Schult. & Schult.f.
  • Aloe cordifolia (Haw.) Schult. & Schult.f.
  • Aloe indurata (Haw.) Schult. & Schult.f.
  • Aloe pseudotortuosa Salm-Dyck
  • Aloe rigida Ker Gawl.
  • Aloe subtortuosa Schult. & Schult.f.
  • Aloe torquata (Haw.) Schult. & Schult.f.
  • Aloe triangularis Lam.
  • Aloe viscosa L.
  • Aloe viscosa var. indurata (Haw.) Salm-Dyck
  • Apicra tortuosa Willd.
  • Catevala asperiuscula (Haw.) Kuntze
  • Catevala cordifolia (Haw.) Kuntze
  • Catevala viscosa (L.) Kuntze
  • Haworthia asperiuscula Haw.
  • Haworthia beanii G.G.Sm.
  • Haworthia concinna Haw.
  • Haworthia cordifolia Haw.
  • Haworthia indurata Haw.
  • Haworthia pseudotortuosa Haw.
  • Haworthia subtortuosa Sweet
  • Haworthia torquata Haw.
  • Haworthia variabilis (Breuer) Breuer

and 9 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. 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.