Mesembryanthemum junceumHaw.

WFO wfo-0000370002 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Mesembryanthemum junceum, photographed by Nicola van Berkel
fig. a Nicola van Berkel, CC BY-SA 4.0 / 2022-03-31 / obs. 201983085
Mesembryanthemum junceum, photographed by Tim Kirsten
fig. b Tim Kirsten, CC0 1.0 / obs. 167556366
Mesembryanthemum junceum, photographed by Di Turner
fig. c Di Turner, CC0 1.0 / obs. 166228923
Mesembryanthemum junceum, photographed by Mahomed Desai
fig. d Mahomed Desai, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 109531881
Mesembryanthemum junceum, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. e Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 86062912
Mesembryanthemum junceum, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. f Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 15735151
Mesembryanthemum junceum, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. g Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 15373924
Mesembryanthemum junceum, photographed by Danie Palm
fig. h Danie Palm, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 103439910

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

Regions where Mesembryanthemum junceum is native: Cape Provinces Cape Provinces
Native distribution of Mesembryanthemum junceum, 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

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 115 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 3.8 °C 5.7 °C 11.4 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 21.8 °C 29.7 °C 31.8 °C
Annual rainfall 238 mm 351 mm 539 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 21 mm 57 mm 104 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 115 research-grade observations of Mesembryanthemum junceum 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 31 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.

  • Mesembryanthemum acutisepalum A.Berger
  • Mesembryanthemum aphyllum DC.
  • Mesembryanthemum coralloides DC.
  • Mesembryanthemum junceum var. pauciflorum Sond.
  • Mesembryanthemum simile Sond.
  • Mesembryanthemum simile var. namaquense Sond.
  • Peratetracoilanthus junceus (Haw.) Rappa & Camarrone
  • Psilocaulon acutisepalum (A.Berger) N.E.Br.
  • Psilocaulon bijliae N.E.Br.
  • Psilocaulon calvinianum L.Bolus
  • Psilocaulon candidum L.Bolus
  • Psilocaulon delosepalum L.Bolus
  • Psilocaulon framesii L.Bolus
  • Psilocaulon imitans L.Bolus
  • Psilocaulon junceum (Haw.) Schwantes
  • Psilocaulon laxiflorum L.Bolus
  • Psilocaulon leightoniae L.Bolus
  • Psilocaulon levynsiae N.E.Br.
  • Psilocaulon lewisiae L.Bolus
  • Psilocaulon namaquense (Sond.) Schwantes
  • Psilocaulon oculatum L.Bolus
  • Psilocaulon pauciflorum (Sond.) Schwantes
  • Psilocaulon planisepalum L.Bolus
  • Psilocaulon rogersiae L.Bolus

and 7 more.

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.