Macaranga capensis(Baill.) Sim

WFO wfo-0000231857 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Macaranga capensis, photographed by Mahomed Desai
fig. a Mahomed Desai, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-04-30 / obs. 192186212
Macaranga capensis, photographed by Shaun Swanepoel
fig. b Shaun Swanepoel, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 105400086
Macaranga capensis, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. c Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 34605290
Macaranga capensis, photographed by Rosemary Harrison
fig. d Rosemary Harrison, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 145778656
Macaranga capensis, photographed by Mmatjie Mashao
fig. e Mmatjie Mashao, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 193660336
Macaranga capensis, photographed by Mmatjie Mashao
fig. f Mmatjie Mashao, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 193658464
Macaranga capensis, photographed by Rosemary Harrison
fig. g Rosemary Harrison, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 149592324
Macaranga capensis, photographed by Sunčana Bradley
fig. h Sunčana Bradley, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 120185874

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 13 botanical countries

Regions where Macaranga capensis is native: Cape Provinces, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Gabon, Kenya, KwaZulu-Natal, Malawi, Mozambique, Northern Provinces, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe Cape ProvincesDR CongoEthiopiaGabonKenyaKwaZulu-NatalMalawiMozambiqueNorthern ProvincesTanzaniaUgandaZambiaZimbabwe
Native distribution of Macaranga capensis, 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
DR Congo ZAI
Ethiopia ETH
Gabon GAB
Kenya KEN
KwaZulu-Natal NAT
Malawi MLW
Mozambique MOZ
Northern Provinces TVL
Tanzania TAN
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 276 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 8.4 °C 11.2 °C 17.4 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 25.3 °C 26.2 °C 27.9 °C
Annual rainfall 941 mm 992 mm 1,198 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 85 mm 98 mm 180 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 276 research-grade observations of Macaranga capensis 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.

  • Macaranga bachmannii Pax
  • Macaranga capensis var. capensis
  • Macaranga inopinata Prain
  • Macaranga multiglandulosa Pax & K.Hoffm.
  • Macaranga ruwenzorica Pax
  • Macaranga usambarica Pax & K.Hoffm.
  • Mallotus capensis (Baill.) Müll.Arg.
  • Mappa capensis Baill.

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.