Ocimum obovatumE.Mey. ex Benth.

WFO wfo-0000253440 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Ocimum obovatum, photographed by Peter Warren
fig. a Peter Warren, CC0 1.0 / 2021-11-07 / obs. 168360642
Ocimum obovatum, photographed by Matthew Fainman
fig. b Matthew Fainman, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 166739443
Ocimum obovatum, photographed by Matthew Fainman
fig. c Matthew Fainman, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 165403760
Ocimum obovatum, photographed by Innes Buchner
fig. d Innes Buchner, CC0 1.0 / obs. 165798160
Ocimum obovatum, photographed by Suvarna Parbhoo Mohan
fig. e Suvarna Parbhoo Mohan, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 164950543
Ocimum obovatum, photographed by Matthew Fainman
fig. f Matthew Fainman, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 164027942
Ocimum obovatum, photographed by Matthew Fainman
fig. g Matthew Fainman, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 162935574
Ocimum obovatum, photographed by Matthew Fainman
fig. h Matthew Fainman, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 159341935

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 33 botanical countries

Regions where Ocimum obovatum is native: Angola, Benin, Burkina, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Provinces, Central African Republic, Congo, DR Congo, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Free State, Ghana, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Kenya, KwaZulu-Natal, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Northern Provinces, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan-South Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe AngolaBeninBurkinaBurundiCameroonCape ProvincesCentral African RepublicCongoDR CongoEritreaEswatiniEthiopiaFree StateGhanaGuineaIvory CoastKenyaKwaZulu-NatalLesothoMadagascarMalawiMaliMozambiqueNigeriaNorthern ProvincesRwandaSomaliaSudan-South SudanTanzaniaTogoUgandaZambiaZimbabwe
Native distribution of Ocimum obovatum, 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
Benin BEN
Burkina BKN
Burundi BUR
Cameroon CMN
Cape Provinces CPP
Central African Republic CAF
Congo CON
DR Congo ZAI
Eritrea ERI
Eswatini SWZ
Ethiopia ETH
Free State OFS
Ghana GHA
Guinea GUI
Ivory Coast IVO
Kenya KEN
KwaZulu-Natal NAT
Lesotho LES
Madagascar MDG
Malawi MLW
Mali MLI
Mozambique MOZ
Nigeria NGA
Northern Provinces TVL
Rwanda RWA
Somalia SOM
Sudan-South Sudan SUD
Tanzania TAN
Togo TOG
Uganda UGA
Zambia ZAM
Zimbabwe ZIM

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 147 in flower of 155 examined

Peak flowering in Jan. Each bar is the share of Ocimum obovatum 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. 147 of 155 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 7 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. 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 1,216 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 1.9 °C 4.7 °C 13.2 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 22.5 °C 25.5 °C 27.9 °C
Annual rainfall 650 mm 869 mm 1,260 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 15 mm 41 mm 129 mm

It is found where winters are cool but frost is light or absent. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 1,216 research-grade observations of Ocimum obovatum 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 46 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.

  • Becium affine (Hochst. ex Benth.) Chiov.
  • Becium choanum P.A.Duvign. & Plancke
  • Becium choanum var. longifolium Ayob.
  • Becium grandiflorum var. cordatum (A.J.Paton) J.-P.Lebrun & Stork
  • Becium grandiflorum var. crystallinum (A.J.Paton) J.-P.Lebrun & Stork
  • Becium grandiflorum var. galpinii (Gürke) Sebald
  • Becium grandiflorum var. latifolium Sebald
  • Becium grandiflorum var. obovatum (E.Mey. ex Benth.) Sebald
  • Becium grandiflorum var. stuhlmannii (Gürke) Sebald
  • Becium modestum (Briq.) G.Taylor
  • Becium neumannii (Gürke) Cufod.
  • Becium obovatum (E.Mey. ex Benth.) N.E.Br.
  • Becium obovatum subsp. cordatum A.J.Paton
  • Becium obovatum subsp. crystallinum A.J.Paton
  • Becium obovatum var. galpinii (Gürke) N.E.Br.
  • Becium obovatum var. hians (Benth.) N.E.Br.
  • Becium obovatum var. macrocaulon (Briq.) Ayob.
  • Becium obovatum var. modestum (Briq.) Ayob.
  • Becium pumilum (Gürke) Chiov.
  • Becium schweinfurthii (Briq.) N.E.Br. ex Broun & Massey
  • Becium ternatum G.Taylor
  • Ocimum affine Hochst. ex Benth.
  • Ocimum affine var. bafingensis A.Chev.
  • Ocimum descampsii Briq.

and 22 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. 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.