Heterocentron elegans

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 5 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 5 times, 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.

Heterocentron elegans, photographed by Obed Palagot Echavarria — fig. a Obed Palagot Echavarria, CC BY-SA 4.0 / 2021-03-28 / obs. 118662414

Heterocentron elegans, photographed by Alexis López Hernández — fig. b Alexis López Hernández, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 14755394

Heterocentron elegans, photographed by Diana Fuentes — fig. c Diana Fuentes, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 14550176

Heterocentron elegans, photographed by Tereso Hernández Morales — fig. d Tereso Hernández Morales, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 196379478

Heterocentron elegans, photographed by Jacqui Geux — fig. e Jacqui Geux, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 149586737

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 7 botanical countries

Native distribution of Heterocentron elegans, 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.

Region	TDWG code	Continent
Mexico Central	MXC	NORTHERN AMERICA
Mexico Gulf	MXG
Mexico Northeast	MXE
Mexico Southeast	MXT
El Salvador	ELS	SOUTHERN AMERICA
Guatemala	GUA
Honduras	HON

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 74 observations

Condition	5th percentile	Median	95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low	6.9 °C	9.0 °C	11.7 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high	18.7 °C	22.3 °C	26.2 °C
Annual rainfall	1,234 mm	2,255 mm	2,730 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter	164 mm	231 mm	518 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 74 research-grade observations of Heterocentron elegans 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 8 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.

Heeria elegans Schltdl.
Heeria procumbens Naudin
Heterocentron sessile Gleason
Heterocentron sessilis Gleason
Hypostate elegans (Schltdl.) Hoffmanns.
Monochaetum guatemalense Standl. & Steyerm.
Rhexia elegans Schltdl.
Schizocentron elegans (Schltdl.) Meisn.

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.
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.