Ochna inermis(Forssk.) Schweinf.

WFO wfo-0001087131 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 4 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 4 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.

Ochna inermis, photographed by Murphy Tladi
fig. a Murphy Tladi, CC BY 4.0 / 2019-12-16 / obs. 58051131
Ochna inermis, photographed by Andrew Hankey
fig. b Andrew Hankey, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 15153924
Ochna inermis, photographed by Wynand Uys
fig. c Wynand Uys, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 109187700
Ochna inermis, photographed by Murphy Tladi
fig. d Murphy Tladi, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 58051134
Ochna inermis, photographed by Andrew Hankey
fig. e Andrew Hankey, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 15153927
Ochna inermis, photographed by Wynand Uys
fig. f Wynand Uys, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 109187712
Ochna inermis, photographed by Murphy Tladi
fig. g Murphy Tladi, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 104309431
Ochna inermis, photographed by Murphy Tladi
fig. h Murphy Tladi, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 104309436

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 14 botanical countries

Regions where Ochna inermis is native: Botswana, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Northern Provinces, Somalia, Tanzania, Uganda, Zimbabwe, Saudi Arabia, Yemen BotswanaDjiboutiEritreaEthiopiaKenyaMadagascarMozambiqueNorthern ProvincesSomaliaTanzaniaUgandaZimbabweSaudi ArabiaYemen
Native distribution of Ochna inermis, 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
Botswana BOT AFRICA
Djibouti DJI
Eritrea ERI
Ethiopia ETH
Kenya KEN
Madagascar MDG
Mozambique MOZ
Northern Provinces TVL
Somalia SOM
Tanzania TAN
Uganda UGA
Zimbabwe ZIM
Saudi Arabia SAU ASIA-TEMPERATE
Yemen YEM

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 89 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 5.6 °C 8.5 °C 12.9 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 27.8 °C 30.6 °C 32.1 °C
Annual rainfall 360 mm 526 mm 831 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 8 mm 16 mm 53 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 89 research-grade observations of Ochna inermis 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 7 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.

  • Diporidium inerme (Forssk.) Tiegh.
  • Diporidium parvifolium Kuntze
  • Diporidium schimperi Tiegh.
  • Euonymus inermis Forssk.
  • Heteroporidium abyssinicum Tiegh.
  • Ochna parvifolia Vahl
  • Ochna rivae Engl.

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.