Melanthium virginicumL.

Virginia bunchflower

WFO wfo-0000690136 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Melanthium virginicum, photographed by Brian Finzel
fig. a Brian Finzel, CC BY-SA 4.0 / 2021-06-30 / obs. 174089179
Melanthium virginicum, photographed by Scott Allen Davis
fig. b Scott Allen Davis, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 47048123
Melanthium virginicum, photographed by Thibaud Aronson
fig. c Thibaud Aronson, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 43707603
Melanthium virginicum, photographed by Brian Finzel
fig. d Brian Finzel, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 343408277
Melanthium virginicum, photographed by John Kees
fig. e John Kees, CC0 1.0 / obs. 194939318
Melanthium virginicum, photographed by Brandon Corder
fig. f Brandon Corder, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 186412906
Melanthium virginicum, photographed by Matt Berger
fig. g Matt Berger, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 153776377
Melanthium virginicum, photographed by John Kees
fig. h John Kees, CC0 1.0 / obs. 146540340

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 26 botanical countries

Regions where Melanthium virginicum is native: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia AlabamaArkansasFloridaGeorgiaIllinoisIndianaIowaKansasKentuckyLouisianaMarylandMississippiMissouriNew JerseyNew YorkNorth CarolinaOhioOklahomaPennsylvaniaSouth CarolinaTennesseeTexasVirginiaWest Virginia DelawareDistrict of Columbia
Native distribution of Melanthium virginicum, 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. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Alabama ALA NORTHERN AMERICA
Arkansas ARK
Delaware DEL
District of Columbia WDC
Florida FLA
Georgia GEO
Illinois ILL
Indiana INI
Iowa IOW
Kansas KAN
Kentucky KTY
Louisiana LOU
Maryland MRY
Mississippi MSI
Missouri MSO
New Jersey NWJ
New York NWY
North Carolina NCA
Ohio OHI
Oklahoma OKL
Pennsylvania PEN
South Carolina SCA
Tennessee TEN
Texas TEX
Virginia VRG
West Virginia WVA

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 68 in flower of 85 examined

Peak flowering in Jun. Each bar is the share of Melanthium virginicum 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. 68 of 85 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 9 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.

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.

  • Evonyxis monoica Raf.
  • Evonyxis undulata Raf.
  • Evonyxis virginica (L.) Raf.
  • Helonias virginica (L.) Sims
  • Leimanthium monoicum (Walter) Sweet
  • Leimanthium virginicum (L.) Willd.
  • Melanthium biglandulosum Bertol.
  • Melanthium dispersum Small
  • Melanthium hybridum Elliott
  • Melanthium laetum Kunth
  • Melanthium monoicum Pursh
  • Melanthium monoicum Walter
  • Melanthium polygamum Desr.
  • Veratrum virginicum (L.) W.T.Aiton
  • Zigadenus hybridus Endl. ex Kunth
  • Zigadenus monoecus (Walter) Kunth
  • Zigadenus virginicus Endl. ex Kunth

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. USDA PLANTS Database. common name, checklist symbol VEVI5. public domain. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. 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.