Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations
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 1 botanical country
| Region | TDWG code | Continent |
|---|---|---|
| Cape Provinces | CPP | AFRICA |
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 51 observations
| Condition | 5th percentile | Median | 95th percentile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coldest month, mean daily low | 1.9 °C | 6.2 °C | 10.1 °C |
| Warmest month, mean daily high | 26.0 °C | 29.7 °C | 31.3 °C |
| Annual rainfall | 211 mm | 402 mm | 542 mm |
| Rainfall in the driest quarter | 32 mm | 46 mm | 94 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 51 research-grade observations of Mesembryanthemum grossum 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 Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.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 30 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.
- Aridaria gratiae L.Bolus
- Aridaria grossa (Aiton) Friedrich
- Aridaria laxipetala L.Bolus
- Aridaria longispinula (Haw.) L.Bolus
- Aridaria platysepala L.Bolus
- Aridaria subpetiolata L.Bolus
- Aridaria willowmorensis L.Bolus
- Mesembryanthemum calycinum Eckl. & Zeyh.
- Mesembryanthemum commutatum A.Berger
- Mesembryanthemum longispinulum Haw.
- Nycteranthus commutatus (A.Berger) Schwantes
- Nycteranthus gratiae (L.Bolus) Schwantes
- Nycteranthus grossus (Aiton) Schwantes
- Nycteranthus laxipetalus (L.Bolus) Schwantes
- Nycteranthus longispinulus (Haw.) Schwantes
- Nycteranthus platysepalus (L.Bolus) Schwantes
- Nycteranthus willowmorensis (L.Bolus) Schwantes
- Perapentacoilanthus grossus (Aiton) Rappa & Camarrone
- Perapentacoilanthus longispinulus (Haw.) Rappa & Camarrone
- Phyllobolus grossus (Aiton) Gerbaulet
- Sphalmanthus commutatus (A.Berger) N.E.Br.
- Sphalmanthus gratiae (L.Bolus) L.Bolus
- Sphalmanthus grossus (Aiton) N.E.Br.
- Sphalmanthus gydouwensis L.Bolus
and 6 more.
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.