Heliconia spathocircinataAristeg.

WFO wfo-0001327864 Accepted WFO 2026-06 3 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–c · 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.

Heliconia spathocircinata, photographed by Victor Farjalla Pontes
fig. a Victor Farjalla Pontes, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-01-09 / obs. 109745395
Heliconia spathocircinata, photographed by Victor Farjalla Pontes
fig. b Victor Farjalla Pontes, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 109836174
Heliconia spathocircinata, photographed by Victor Farjalla Pontes
fig. c Victor Farjalla Pontes, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 109836246

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 13 botanical countries

Regions where Heliconia spathocircinata is native: Bolivia, Brazil North, Brazil Northeast, Brazil Southeast, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Panamá, Peru, Suriname, Trinidad-Tobago, Venezuela BoliviaBrazil NorthBrazil NortheastBrazil SoutheastColombiaEcuadorFrench GuianaGuyanaPanamáPeruSurinameTrinidad-TobagoVenezuela
Native distribution of Heliconia spathocircinata, 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
Bolivia BOL SOUTHERN AMERICA
Brazil North BZN
Brazil Northeast BZE
Brazil Southeast BZL
Colombia CLM
Ecuador ECU
French Guiana FRG
Guyana GUY
Panamá PAN
Peru PER
Suriname SUR
Trinidad-Tobago TRT
Venezuela VEN

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 82 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 15.0 °C 20.4 °C 23.2 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 26.8 °C 30.2 °C 32.9 °C
Annual rainfall 1,090 mm 2,220 mm 3,696 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 99 mm 208 mm 574 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 82 research-grade observations of Heliconia spathocircinata 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 6 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.

  • Heliconia antioquiensis Abalo & G.Morales
  • Heliconia linneana Lane ex Barreiros
  • Heliconia linneana var. flava Barreiros
  • Heliconia paraensis Huber ex Santos
  • Heliconia rollinsii Lane ex Santos
  • Heliconia spatho-circinata Aristeg.

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.