Plate 1 figs. a–f · 4 observations
This species has been photographed under an open licence only 4 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.
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 11 botanical countries
| Region | TDWG code | Continent |
|---|---|---|
| Burundi | BUR | AFRICA |
| DR Congo | ZAI | |
| Eritrea | ERI | |
| Ethiopia | ETH | |
| Kenya | KEN | |
| Malawi | MLW | |
| Rwanda | RWA | |
| Sudan-South Sudan | SUD | |
| Tanzania | TAN | |
| Uganda | UGA | |
| Zambia | ZAM |
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 189 observations
| Condition | 5th percentile | Median | 95th percentile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coldest month, mean daily low | 3.3 °C | 7.8 °C | 11.9 °C |
| Warmest month, mean daily high | 14.7 °C | 19.6 °C | 23.8 °C |
| Annual rainfall | 1,138 mm | 2,245 mm | 3,972 mm |
| Rainfall in the driest quarter | 33 mm | 210 mm | 350 mm |
It is found where winters are cool but frost is light or absent. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 189 research-grade observations of Lobelia giberroa 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 Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.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 17 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 giberroa Kuntze
- Lobelia giberroa subsp. squarrosa (Baker f.) Mabb.
- Lobelia giberroa var. intermedia (Hauman) Robyns
- Lobelia giberroa var. iringensis E.Wimm.
- Lobelia giberroa var. longibracteata Hauman
- Lobelia giberroa var. mionandra E.Wimm.
- Lobelia giberroa var. ulugurensis (Engl.) Hauman
- Lobelia giberroa var. usafuensis (Engl.) Hauman
- Lobelia giberroa var. volkensii (Engl.) Hauman
- Lobelia intermedia Hauman
- Lobelia squarrosa Baker
- Lobelia ulugurensis Engl. ex R.E.Fr. & T.C.E.Fr.
- Lobelia usafuensis Engl.
- Lobelia volkensii Engl.
- Lobelia volkensii var. ulugurensis Engl.
- Rapuntium volkensii (Engl.) Kuntze
- Tupa schimperi Hochst. ex A.Rich.
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.