Hymenocardia acidaTul.

WFO wfo-0000216004 Accepted WFO 2026-06 5 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–e · 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.

Hymenocardia acida, photographed by Mahomed Desai
fig. a Mahomed Desai, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-03-05 / obs. 115643740
Hymenocardia acida, photographed by Mahomed Desai
fig. b Mahomed Desai, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 115643770
Hymenocardia acida, photographed by Mahomed Desai
fig. c Mahomed Desai, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 115643765
Hymenocardia acida, photographed by Mahomed Desai
fig. d Mahomed Desai, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 115643769
Hymenocardia acida, photographed by Mahomed Desai
fig. e Mahomed Desai, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 115643734

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 34 botanical countries

Regions where Hymenocardia acida is native: Angola, Benin, Burkina, Burundi, Cameroon, Caprivi Strip, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, DR Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sudan-South Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe AngolaBeninBurkinaBurundiCameroonCaprivi StripCentral African RepublicChadCongoDR CongoEquatorial GuineaEthiopiaGabonGambiaGhanaGuineaGuinea-BissauIvory CoastKenyaLiberiaMalawiMaliMauritaniaMozambiqueNigeriaRwandaSenegalSierra LeoneSudan-South SudanTanzaniaTogoUgandaZambiaZimbabwe
Native distribution of Hymenocardia acida, 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
Angola ANG AFRICA
Benin BEN
Burkina BKN
Burundi BUR
Cameroon CMN
Caprivi Strip CPV
Central African Republic CAF
Chad CHA
Congo CON
DR Congo ZAI
Equatorial Guinea EQG
Ethiopia ETH
Gabon GAB
Gambia GAM
Ghana GHA
Guinea GUI
Guinea-Bissau GNB
Ivory Coast IVO
Kenya KEN
Liberia LBR
Malawi MLW
Mali MLI
Mauritania MTN
Mozambique MOZ
Nigeria NGA
Rwanda RWA
Senegal SEN
Sierra Leone SIE
Sudan-South Sudan SUD
Tanzania TAN
Togo TOG
Uganda UGA
Zambia ZAM
Zimbabwe ZIM

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 40 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 9.9 °C 14.2 °C 19.5 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 28.8 °C 31.4 °C 36.8 °C
Annual rainfall 749 mm 1,254 mm 1,599 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 1 mm 5 mm 89 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 40 research-grade observations of Hymenocardia acida 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 10 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.

  • Hymenocardia acida var. acida
  • Hymenocardia acida var. mollis (Pax) Radcl.-Sm.
  • Hymenocardia granulata Beille
  • Hymenocardia lanceolata Beille
  • Hymenocardia lasiophylla Pax
  • Hymenocardia mollis Pax
  • Hymenocardia mollis var. genuina Pax & K.Hoffm.
  • Hymenocardia mollis var. glabra Pax
  • Hymenocardia mollis var. lasiophylla (Pax) Pax
  • Hymenocardia obovata A.Chev. & Beille

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.