Oxyanthus speciosusDC.

wild loquat

WFO wfo-0000261824 Accepted WFO 2026-06 4 photographs CC0

Plate 1 figs. a–d · 1 observation

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 1 time, 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.

Oxyanthus speciosus, photographed by Andrew Deacon
fig. a Andrew Deacon, CC0 1.0 / 2016-09-13 / obs. 103424806
Oxyanthus speciosus, photographed by Andrew Deacon
fig. b Andrew Deacon, CC0 1.0 / obs. 103424797
Oxyanthus speciosus, photographed by Andrew Deacon
fig. c Andrew Deacon, CC0 1.0 / obs. 103424802
Oxyanthus speciosus, photographed by Andrew Deacon
fig. d Andrew Deacon, CC0 1.0 / obs. 103424804

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 35 botanical countries

Regions where Oxyanthus speciosus is native: Angola, Benin, Burundi, Cabinda, Cameroon, Cape Provinces, Central African Republic, Congo, DR Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Gulf of Guinea Is., Ivory Coast, Kenya, KwaZulu-Natal, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Northern Provinces, Rwanda, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Sudan-South Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe AngolaBeninBurundiCabindaCameroonCape ProvincesCentral African RepublicCongoDR CongoEquatorial GuineaEswatiniEthiopiaGabonGambiaGhanaGuineaGuinea-BissauGulf of Guinea Is.Ivory CoastKenyaKwaZulu-NatalLiberiaMalawiMozambiqueNigeriaNorthern ProvincesRwandaSenegalSierra LeoneSudan-South SudanTanzaniaTogoUgandaZambiaZimbabwe
Native distribution of Oxyanthus speciosus, 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
Burundi BUR
Cabinda CAB
Cameroon CMN
Cape Provinces CPP
Central African Republic CAF
Congo CON
DR Congo ZAI
Equatorial Guinea EQG
Eswatini SWZ
Ethiopia ETH
Gabon GAB
Gambia GAM
Ghana GHA
Guinea GUI
Guinea-Bissau GNB
Gulf of Guinea Is. GGI
Ivory Coast IVO
Kenya KEN
KwaZulu-Natal NAT
Liberia LBR
Malawi MLW
Mozambique MOZ
Nigeria NGA
Northern Provinces TVL
Rwanda RWA
Senegal SEN
Sierra Leone SIE
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.

Where it actually grows measured, from 121 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 3.5 °C 7.7 °C 12.1 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 22.4 °C 25.9 °C 28.5 °C
Annual rainfall 772 mm 1,159 mm 1,450 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 34 mm 55 mm 137 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 121 research-grade observations of Oxyanthus speciosus 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 8 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.

  • Oxyanthus gerrardii Sond.
  • Oxyanthus huillensis I.Nogueira
  • Oxyanthus mollis Hutch.
  • Oxyanthus speciosus subsp. globosus Bridson
  • Oxyanthus speciosus var. glaber Bridson
  • Oxyanthus speciosus var. mollis (Hutch.) Bridson
  • Oxyanthus speciosus var. pubescens I.Nogueira
  • Oxyanthus stenocarpa K.Schum.

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.