Miconia crenata(Vahl) Michelang.

soapbush

WFO wfo-0001429190 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Miconia crenata, photographed by Don Loarie
fig. a Don Loarie, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-20 / obs. 203108347
Miconia crenata, photographed by Tyler Bishop
fig. b Tyler Bishop, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 198449334
Miconia crenata, photographed by Ong Jyh Seng
fig. c Ong Jyh Seng, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 194300076
Miconia crenata, photographed by Cajá-manga
fig. d Cajá-manga, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 189429387
Miconia crenata, photographed by Paulmathi Vinod
fig. e Paulmathi Vinod, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 183500606
Miconia crenata, photographed by Kevin Faccenda
fig. f Kevin Faccenda, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 180752136
Miconia crenata, photographed by Kevin Faccenda
fig. g Kevin Faccenda, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 180751882
Miconia crenata, photographed by Ong Jyh Seng
fig. h Ong Jyh Seng, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 179920582

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 35 botanical countries

Regions where Miconia crenata is native: Mexico Central, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Southeast, Mexico Southwest, Argentina Northeast, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil North, Brazil Northeast, Brazil South, Brazil Southeast, Brazil West-Central, Central American Pacific Is., Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Leeward Is., Nicaragua, Panamá, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Suriname, Trinidad-Tobago, Venezuela, Venezuelan Antilles, Windward Is. Mexico CentralMexico GulfMexico SoutheastMexico SouthwestArgentina NortheastBelizeBoliviaBrazil NorthBrazil NortheastBrazil SouthBrazil SoutheastBrazil West-CentralCentral American Pacific Is.ColombiaCosta RicaCubaDominican RepublicEcuadorFrench GuianaGuatemalaGuyanaHaitiHondurasJamaicaNicaraguaPanamáParaguayPeruPuerto RicoSurinameTrinidad-TobagoVenezuela Leeward Is.Venezuelan AntillesWindward Is.
Native distribution of Miconia crenata, 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
Argentina Northeast AGE SOUTHERN AMERICA
Belize BLZ
Bolivia BOL
Brazil North BZN
Brazil Northeast BZE
Brazil South BZS
Brazil Southeast BZL
Brazil West-Central BZC
Central American Pacific Is. CPI
Colombia CLM
Costa Rica COS
Cuba CUB
Dominican Republic DOM
Ecuador ECU
French Guiana FRG
Guatemala GUA
Guyana GUY
Haiti HAI
Honduras HON
Jamaica JAM
Leeward Is. LEE
Nicaragua NIC
Panamá PAN
Paraguay PAR
Peru PER
Puerto Rico PUE
Suriname SUR
Trinidad-Tobago TRT
Venezuela VEN
Venezuelan Antilles VNA
Windward Is. WIN
Mexico Central MXC NORTHERN AMERICA
Mexico Gulf MXG
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.

Flowering 175 in flower of 281 examined

Peak flowering in May. Each bar is the share of Miconia crenata 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. 175 of 281 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 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.

Where it actually grows measured, from 1,978 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 12.3 °C 19.7 °C 24.3 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 24.3 °C 27.0 °C 31.6 °C
Annual rainfall 999 mm 2,411 mm 4,759 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 105 mm 283 mm 967 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 1,978 research-grade observations of Miconia crenata 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. Climate from CHELSA V2.1 (Karger et al. 2017); occurrences from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 25 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.

  • Clidemia benthamiana Miq.
  • Clidemia cognata Steud. ex Naudin
  • Clidemia crenata DC.
  • Clidemia elegans (Aubl.) D.Don
  • Clidemia hirta (L.) D.Don
  • Clidemia hirta var. chrysantha Cogn.
  • Clidemia hirta var. tiliifolia (DC.) J.F.Macbr.
  • Clidemia pauciflora DC.
  • Clidemia tiliifolia DC.
  • Dancera hirta (L.) Raf.
  • Leandra fimbriata Raddi
  • Maieta hirta (L.) Baill.
  • Melastoma crenatum Vahl
  • Melastoma elegans Aubl.
  • Melastoma hirtum L.
  • Melastoma pauciflorum Desr.
  • Staphidium anceps Naudin
  • Staphidium benthamianum Naudin
  • Staphidium chrysanthum Naudin
  • Staphidium elegans (Aubl.) Naudin
  • Staphidium hostmannii Naudin
  • Staphidium pauciflorum Naudin
  • Staphidium pauciflorum var. calcaratum Naudin
  • Staphidium pauciflorum var. stellulatum Naudin

and 1 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. USDA PLANTS Database. common name, checklist symbol CLHI3. 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.