Melochia nodifloraSw.

bretonica prieta

WFO wfo-0000452152 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Melochia nodiflora, photographed by ritirene
fig. a ritirene, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-12-18 / obs. 172982419
Melochia nodiflora, photographed by Brian Oakes Haiti Hunter
fig. b Brian Oakes Haiti Hunter, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 116501187
Melochia nodiflora, photographed by Brian Oakes Haiti Hunter
fig. c Brian Oakes Haiti Hunter, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 112020810
Melochia nodiflora, photographed by Daniel Pineda Vera
fig. d Daniel Pineda Vera, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 103571967
Melochia nodiflora, photographed by Daniel Cahen
fig. e Daniel Cahen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 61434336
Melochia nodiflora, photographed by Daniel Cahen
fig. f Daniel Cahen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 61136619
Melochia nodiflora, photographed by Daniel Cahen
fig. g Daniel Cahen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 61024577
Melochia nodiflora, photographed by Daniel Cahen
fig. h Daniel Cahen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 61023766

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.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
The New York Botanical Garden
Accession
01053278
Filed as
Melochia nodiflora Sw.
Det. by
P. A. Fryxell 1988-01-01
Collected
B. M. Boom 1987-01-06
Origin
PR
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 28 botanical countries

Regions where Melochia nodiflora is native: Florida, Mexico Central, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southeast, Mexico Southwest, Bahamas, Belize, Brazil Northeast, Brazil Southeast, Cayman Is., Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Leeward Is., Nicaragua, Panamá, Puerto Rico, Trinidad-Tobago, Venezuela, Windward Is. FloridaMexico CentralMexico GulfMexico NortheastMexico NorthwestMexico SoutheastMexico SouthwestBelizeBrazil NortheastBrazil SoutheastColombiaCosta RicaCubaDominican RepublicEl SalvadorGuatemalaHaitiHondurasJamaicaNicaraguaPanamáPuerto RicoTrinidad-TobagoVenezuela BahamasCayman Is.Leeward Is.Windward Is.
Native distribution of Melochia nodiflora, 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
Bahamas BAH SOUTHERN AMERICA
Belize BLZ
Brazil Northeast BZE
Brazil Southeast BZL
Cayman Is. CAY
Colombia CLM
Costa Rica COS
Cuba CUB
Dominican Republic DOM
El Salvador ELS
Guatemala GUA
Haiti HAI
Honduras HON
Jamaica JAM
Leeward Is. LEE
Nicaragua NIC
Panamá PAN
Puerto Rico PUE
Trinidad-Tobago TRT
Venezuela VEN
Windward Is. WIN
Florida FLA NORTHERN AMERICA
Mexico Central MXC
Mexico Gulf MXG
Mexico Northeast MXE
Mexico Northwest MXN
Mexico Southeast MXT
Mexico Southwest MXS

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 254 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 12.7 °C 22.2 °C 24.4 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 27.4 °C 29.6 °C 34.4 °C
Annual rainfall 987 mm 1,455 mm 2,235 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 12 mm 168 mm 339 mm

It is not found anywhere that gets close to freezing. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 254 research-grade observations of Melochia nodiflora 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.

  • Melochia borbonica Cav.
  • Melochia carpinifolia J.C.Wendl.
  • Melochia conglobata Sessé & Moc.
  • Melochia nodiflora var. longipetiolata Kitan.
  • Mougeotia nodiflora (Sw.) Kunth
  • Riedlea borbonica (Cav.) DC.
  • Riedlea nodiflora (Sw.) DC.
  • Visenia nodiflora (Sw.) Spreng.

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. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. 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.