Lobelia caeruleaHook.

WFO wfo-0000814296 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 3 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 3 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.

Lobelia caerulea, photographed by Mahomed Desai
fig. a Mahomed Desai, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-03-11 / obs. 115885321
Lobelia caerulea, photographed by Mahomed Desai
fig. b Mahomed Desai, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 115885315
Lobelia caerulea, photographed by Mahomed Desai
fig. c Mahomed Desai, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 115885318
Lobelia caerulea, photographed by Mahomed Desai
fig. d Mahomed Desai, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 115885314
Lobelia caerulea, photographed by Christoph Moning
fig. e Christoph Moning, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 59797486
Lobelia caerulea, photographed by Nick Schaller
fig. f Nick Schaller, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 197782210
Lobelia caerulea, photographed by Nick Schaller
fig. g Nick Schaller, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 197782252
Lobelia caerulea, photographed by Nick Schaller
fig. h Nick Schaller, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 197782271

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 3 botanical countries

Regions where Lobelia caerulea is native: Cape Provinces, KwaZulu-Natal, Mozambique Cape ProvincesKwaZulu-NatalMozambique
Native distribution of Lobelia caerulea, 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
Cape Provinces CPP AFRICA
KwaZulu-Natal NAT
Mozambique MOZ

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.

Also published as 20 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.

  • Dortmanna coronopifolia var. caerulea (Sims) Kuntze
  • Dortmanna coronopifolia var. glabrescens (C.Presl) Kuntze
  • Dortmanna coronopifolia var. macularis (C.Presl) Kuntze
  • Lobelia backhouseana Lem.
  • Lobelia caerulea f. procera (C.Presl) E.Wimm.
  • Lobelia caerulea var. backhouseana (Lem.) E.Wimm.
  • Lobelia caerulea var. caerulea
  • Lobelia caerulea var. glabrescens (C.Presl) A.DC.
  • Lobelia caerulea var. latidens (C.Presl) A.DC.
  • Lobelia caerulea var. macularis (C.Presl) E.Wimm.
  • Lobelia coronopifolia var. caerulea (Sims) Sond.
  • Lobelia coronopifolia var. glabrescens (C.Presl) Sond.
  • Lobelia coronopifolia var. macularis (C.Presl) Sond.
  • Lobelia macularis (C.Presl) A.DC.
  • Lobelia macularis var. procera (C.Presl) A.DC.
  • Rapuntium caeruleum (Sims) C.Presl
  • Rapuntium caeruleum var. glabrescens C.Presl
  • Rapuntium caeruleum var. latidens C.Presl
  • Rapuntium maculare C.Presl
  • Rapuntium maculare var. procerum C.Presl

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.