Helichrysum citrispinumDelile

WFO wfo-0000130311 Accepted WFO 2026-06 4 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–d · 4 separate observations

Helichrysum citrispinum, photographed by stephen
fig. a stephen, CC BY 4.0 / 2020-02-20 / obs. 64679597
Helichrysum citrispinum, photographed by Stefano Menchetti
fig. b Stefano Menchetti, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 14230011
Helichrysum citrispinum, photographed by stephen
fig. c stephen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 64761852
Helichrysum citrispinum, photographed by Stefano Menchetti
fig. d Stefano Menchetti, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 14230181

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 4 botanical countries

Regions where Helichrysum citrispinum is native: Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda EthiopiaKenyaTanzaniaUganda
Native distribution of Helichrysum citrispinum, 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
Ethiopia ETH AFRICA
Kenya KEN
Tanzania TAN
Uganda UGA

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 64 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -6.3 °C 0.5 °C 5.7 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 7.3 °C 12.5 °C 22.1 °C
Annual rainfall 2,193 mm 3,125 mm 5,019 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 102 mm 232 mm 287 mm

It is found where winters bring hard frost. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 64 research-grade observations of Helichrysum citrispinum 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 11 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.

  • Gnaphalium citrispinum (Delile) Schweinf. & Asch.
  • Gnaphalium citrispinum (Delile) Sch.Bip.
  • Gnaphalium spinosum Sch.Bip.
  • Helichrysum aberdaricum R.E.Fr.
  • Helichrysum acanthophorum R.E.Fr.
  • Helichrysum armatum Mattf.
  • Helichrysum citrispinum var. aberdaricum (R.E.Fr.) Hedberg
  • Helichrysum citrispinum var. armatum (Mattf.) Hedberg
  • Helichrysum hoehnelii Schweinf.
  • Helichrysum newii var. gunnae Engl.
  • Helichrysum spinosum (Delile) Sch.Bip. ex Hochst.

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.