Mussaenda erythrophyllaSchumach. & Thonn.

red mussaenda

WFO wfo-0000246551 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Mussaenda erythrophylla, photographed by Haneesh K M
fig. a Haneesh K M, CC0 1.0 / 2022-05-01 / obs. 195033516
Mussaenda erythrophylla, photographed by Jean-Paul Boerekamps
fig. b Jean-Paul Boerekamps, CC0 1.0 / obs. 174092270
Mussaenda erythrophylla, photographed by Sabarni Sarker
fig. c Sabarni Sarker, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 153296586
Mussaenda erythrophylla, photographed by Diogo Luiz
fig. d Diogo Luiz, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 51471878
Mussaenda erythrophylla, photographed by Peter Quakenbush
fig. e Peter Quakenbush, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 37891737
Mussaenda erythrophylla, photographed by Wutthichayapartith Rasvara Nangkasamarinile
fig. f Wutthichayapartith Rasvara Nangkasamarinile, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 180219445
Mussaenda erythrophylla, photographed by Musa Fletcher
fig. g Musa Fletcher, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 172814646
Mussaenda erythrophylla, photographed by Philani Hadebe
fig. h Philani Hadebe, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 173277083

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
1146439
Filed as
Mussaenda erythrophylla Schumach. & Thonn.
Det. by
P. G. Delprete 2006-01-01
Collected
P. G. Delprete 2006-01-12
Origin
BR
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 21 botanical countries

Regions where Mussaenda erythrophylla is native: Angola, Burundi, Cabinda, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, DR Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Gulf of Guinea Is., Ivory Coast, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Sudan-South Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda AngolaBurundiCabindaCameroonCentral African RepublicCongoDR CongoEquatorial GuineaGabonGhanaGuineaGulf of Guinea Is.Ivory CoastKenyaLiberiaNigeriaSierra LeoneSudan-South SudanTanzaniaTogoUganda
Native distribution of Mussaenda erythrophylla, 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
Angola ANG AFRICA
Burundi BUR
Cabinda CAB
Cameroon CMN
Central African Republic CAF
Congo CON
DR Congo ZAI
Equatorial Guinea EQG
Gabon GAB
Ghana GHA
Guinea GUI
Gulf of Guinea Is. GGI
Ivory Coast IVO
Kenya KEN
Liberia LBR
Nigeria NGA
Sierra Leone SIE
Sudan-South Sudan SUD
Tanzania TAN
Togo TOG
Uganda UGA

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 522 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 11.5 °C 20.0 °C 24.7 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 25.4 °C 29.8 °C 35.3 °C
Annual rainfall 1,015 mm 2,377 mm 4,535 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 5 mm 106 mm 592 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 522 research-grade observations of Mussaenda erythrophylla 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 2 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.

  • Mussaenda fulgens R.Br. ex Tedlie
  • Mussaenda splendida Welw.

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 MUER. 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.