Nymphoides humboldtiana(Kunth) Kuntze

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WFO wfo-0000382474 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Nymphoides humboldtiana, photographed by Ezequiel Vera
fig. a Ezequiel Vera, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-03-12 / obs. 188008403

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 40 botanical countries

Regions where Nymphoides humboldtiana is native: Florida, Mexico Central, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Southeast, Mexico Southwest, Texas, Argentina Northeast, Argentina Northwest, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil North, Brazil Northeast, Brazil South, Brazil Southeast, Brazil West-Central, Cayman Is., Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Leeward Is., Nicaragua, Panamá, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Suriname, Trinidad-Tobago, Uruguay, Venezuela, Windward Is. FloridaMexico CentralMexico GulfMexico NortheastMexico SoutheastMexico SouthwestTexasArgentina NortheastArgentina NorthwestBelizeBoliviaBrazil NorthBrazil NortheastBrazil SouthBrazil SoutheastBrazil West-CentralColombiaCosta RicaCubaDominican RepublicEcuadorEl SalvadorFrench GuianaGuatemalaGuyanaHaitiHondurasJamaicaNicaraguaPanamáParaguayPeruPuerto RicoSurinameTrinidad-TobagoUruguayVenezuela Cayman Is.Leeward Is.Windward Is.
Native distribution of Nymphoides humboldtiana, 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
Argentina Northwest AGW
Belize BLZ
Bolivia BOL
Brazil North BZN
Brazil Northeast BZE
Brazil South BZS
Brazil Southeast BZL
Brazil West-Central BZC
Cayman Is. CAY
Colombia CLM
Costa Rica COS
Cuba CUB
Dominican Republic DOM
Ecuador ECU
El Salvador ELS
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
Uruguay URU
Venezuela VEN
Windward Is. WIN
Florida FLA NORTHERN AMERICA
Mexico Central MXC
Mexico Gulf MXG
Mexico Northeast MXE
Mexico Southeast MXT
Mexico Southwest MXS
Texas TEX

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 238 in flower of 247 examined

Proportion of examined Nymphoides humboldtiana in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 29 30 97% 83% to 99%
Feb 27 27 100% 88% to 100%
Mar 13 13 100% 77% to 100%
Apr 17 17 100% 82% to 100%
May 19 19 100% 83% to 100%
Jun 10 13 77% 50% to 92%
Jul 15 15 100% 80% to 100%
Aug 17 18 94% 74% to 99%
Sep 15 15 100% 80% to 100%
Oct 21 22 95% 78% to 99%
Nov 36 37 97% 86% to 100%
Dec 19 21 90% 71% to 97%

Peak flowering in Feb. Each bar is the share of Nymphoides humboldtiana 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. 238 of 247 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 822 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 7.4 °C 16.5 °C 24.4 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 25.2 °C 29.8 °C 33.1 °C
Annual rainfall 1,038 mm 1,531 mm 3,159 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 26 mm 206 mm 352 mm

It is barely found anywhere that freezes. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 822 research-grade observations of Nymphoides humboldtiana 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 6 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.

  • Limnanthemum humboldtianum (Kunth) Griseb.
  • Limnanthemum microphyllum (A.St.-Hil.) Griseb.
  • Nymphoides microphylla (A.St.-Hil.) Kuntze
  • Trachysperma humboldtiana (Kunth) House
  • Villarsia humboldtiana Kunth
  • Villarsia microphylla A.St.-Hil.

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 NYHU. 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.