Ocimum campechianumMill.

least basil

WFO wfo-0000253244 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Ocimum campechianum, photographed by Daniel Cahen
fig. a Daniel Cahen, CC BY 4.0 / 2020-02-09 / obs. 61230600

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
00686081
Filed as
Ocimum campechianum Mill.
Det. by
A. J. Paton 2003-01-01
Collected
J. L. Paixão 1998-12-16
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 42 botanical countries

Regions where Ocimum campechianum is native: Florida, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southeast, Mexico Southwest, Argentina Northeast, Argentina Northwest, Bahamas, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil North, Brazil Northeast, Brazil South, Brazil Southeast, Brazil West-Central, Cayman Is., Chile North, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Leeward Is., Nicaragua, Panamá, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Southwest Caribbean, Suriname, Trinidad-Tobago, Uruguay, Venezuela, Venezuelan Antilles, Windward Is. FloridaMexico NortheastMexico NorthwestMexico SoutheastMexico SouthwestArgentina NortheastArgentina NorthwestBelizeBoliviaBrazil NorthBrazil NortheastBrazil SouthBrazil SoutheastBrazil West-CentralChile NorthColombiaCosta RicaCubaDominican RepublicEcuadorEl SalvadorFrench GuianaGuatemalaGuyanaHaitiHondurasJamaicaNicaraguaPanamáParaguayPeruPuerto RicoSouthwest CaribbeanSurinameTrinidad-TobagoUruguayVenezuela BahamasCayman Is.Leeward Is.Venezuelan AntillesWindward Is.
Native distribution of Ocimum campechianum, 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
Bahamas BAH
Belize BLZ
Bolivia BOL
Brazil North BZN
Brazil Northeast BZE
Brazil South BZS
Brazil Southeast BZL
Brazil West-Central BZC
Cayman Is. CAY
Chile North CLN
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
Southwest Caribbean SWC
Suriname SUR
Trinidad-Tobago TRT
Uruguay URU
Venezuela VEN
Venezuelan Antilles VNA
Windward Is. WIN
Florida FLA NORTHERN AMERICA
Mexico Northeast MXE
Mexico Northwest MXN
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.

Where it actually grows measured, from 189 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 12.0 °C 19.0 °C 24.0 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 27.0 °C 30.9 °C 35.9 °C
Annual rainfall 810 mm 1,513 mm 3,510 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 16 mm 130 mm 310 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 189 research-grade observations of Ocimum campechianum 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 5 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.

  • Ocimum flexuosum Thunb.
  • Ocimum guatemalense Gand.
  • Ocimum micranthum Willd.
  • Ocimum montanum Hook.
  • Ocimum pubescens Mill. ex Benth.

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. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. 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.