Justicia flava(Forssk.) Vahl

WFO wfo-0000354374 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Justicia flava, photographed by Ryan Donnelly
fig. a Ryan Donnelly, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-25 / obs. 201719416
Justicia flava, photographed by Caroline Voget
fig. b Caroline Voget, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 200482289
Justicia flava, photographed by Noeleen du Toit
fig. c Noeleen du Toit, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 193789256
Justicia flava, photographed by Margaret Burger
fig. d Margaret Burger, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 139976315
Justicia flava, photographed by Antoinette Eyssell Knox
fig. e Antoinette Eyssell Knox, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 120975913
Justicia flava, photographed by Shaun Swanepoel
fig. f Shaun Swanepoel, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 105968850
Justicia flava, photographed by Brendan Smith
fig. g Brendan Smith, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 69951154
Justicia flava, photographed by Shaun Swanepoel
fig. h Shaun Swanepoel, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 63846572

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 38 botanical countries

Regions where Justicia flava is native: Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Provinces, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Djibouti, DR Congo, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Kenya, KwaZulu-Natal, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Northern Provinces, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan-South Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Myanmar AngolaBeninBotswanaBurkinaBurundiCameroonCape ProvincesCentral African RepublicChadCongoDjiboutiDR CongoEritreaEswatiniEthiopiaGhanaGuineaIvory CoastKenyaKwaZulu-NatalLiberiaMalawiMozambiqueNigeriaNorthern ProvincesRwandaSenegalSierra LeoneSomaliaSudan-South SudanTanzaniaTogoUgandaZambiaZimbabweSaudi ArabiaYemenMyanmar
Native distribution of Justicia flava, 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
Botswana BOT
Burkina BKN
Burundi BUR
Cameroon CMN
Cape Provinces CPP
Central African Republic CAF
Chad CHA
Congo CON
Djibouti DJI
DR Congo ZAI
Eritrea ERI
Eswatini SWZ
Ethiopia ETH
Ghana GHA
Guinea GUI
Ivory Coast IVO
Kenya KEN
KwaZulu-Natal NAT
Liberia LBR
Malawi MLW
Mozambique MOZ
Nigeria NGA
Northern Provinces TVL
Rwanda RWA
Senegal SEN
Sierra Leone SIE
Somalia SOM
Sudan-South Sudan SUD
Tanzania TAN
Togo TOG
Uganda UGA
Zambia ZAM
Zimbabwe ZIM
Saudi Arabia SAU ASIA-TEMPERATE
Yemen YEM
Myanmar MYA ASIA-TROPICAL

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.

Flowering 78 in flower of 78 examined

Peak flowering in Jan. Each bar is the share of Justicia flava observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 78 of 78 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 4 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Where it actually grows measured, from 824 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 5.6 °C 11.6 °C 19.2 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 25.3 °C 30.2 °C 32.3 °C
Annual rainfall 457 mm 688 mm 1,590 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 10 mm 30 mm 142 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 824 research-grade observations of Justicia flava 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. Climate from CHELSA V2.1 (Karger et al. 2017); occurrences from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 41 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.

  • Adhatoda acuminata (Hochst.) Nees
  • Adhatoda fasciata Nees
  • Adhatoda flava (Forssk.) Nees
  • Adhatoda major (Hochst.) Nees
  • Adhatoda minor (Hochst.) Nees
  • Adhatoda palustris (Hochst.) Nees
  • Adhatoda plicata (Vahl) Nees
  • Adhatoda suaveolens Nees
  • Adhatoda sulcata (Vahl) Nees
  • Carima sulcata (Vahl) Raf.
  • Dianthera americana var. flava Forssk.
  • Dianthera flava (Forssk.) Vahl
  • Dianthera sulcata Vahl
  • Dicliptera fasciata C.Presl
  • Ecbolium acuminatum (Hochst.) Kuntze
  • Ecbolium fasciatum (Nees) Kuntze
  • Ecbolium flavum (Forssk.) Kuntze
  • Ecbolium kurzianum Kuntze
  • Ecbolium majus (Hochst.) Kuntze
  • Ecbolium minus (Hochst.) Kuntze
  • Ecbolium palustre (Hochst.) Kuntze
  • Ecbolium plicatum (Vahl) Kuntze
  • Ecbolium sulcatum (Vahl) Kuntze
  • Gendarussa palustris Hochst.

and 17 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.