Paederia foetidaL.

skunkvinestinkvine

WFO wfo-0000262308 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Paederia foetida, photographed by 五色鳥
fig. a 五色鳥, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-28 / obs. 201116001

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 32 botanical countries

Regions where Paederia foetida is native: China North-Central, China South-Central, China Southeast, Hainan, Japan, Korea, Nansei-shoto, Ogasawara-shoto, Taiwan, Tibet, Andaman Is., Assam, Bangladesh, Borneo, Cambodia, East Himalaya, India, Jawa, Laos, Lesser Sunda Is., Malaya, Maluku, Myanmar, Nepal, Nicobar Is., Philippines, South China Sea, Sri Lanka, Sulawesi, Sumatera, Thailand, Vietnam China North-CentralChina South-CentralChina SoutheastHainanJapanTaiwanTibetAssamBangladeshBorneoCambodiaEast HimalayaIndiaJawaLaosLesser Sunda Is.MalayaMalukuMyanmarNepalPhilippinesSri LankaSulawesiSumateraThailandVietnam KoreaNansei-shotoAndaman Is.Nicobar Is.South China Sea
Native distribution of Paederia foetida, 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
Andaman Is. AND ASIA-TROPICAL
Assam ASS
Bangladesh BAN
Borneo BOR
Cambodia CBD
East Himalaya EHM
India IND
Jawa JAW
Laos LAO
Lesser Sunda Is. LSI
Malaya MLY
Maluku MOL
Myanmar MYA
Nepal NEP
Nicobar Is. NCB
Philippines PHI
South China Sea SCS
Sri Lanka SRL
Sulawesi SUL
Sumatera SUM
Thailand THA
Vietnam VIE
China North-Central CHN ASIA-TEMPERATE
China South-Central CHC
China Southeast CHS
Hainan CHH
Japan JAP
Korea KOR
Nansei-shoto NNS
Ogasawara-shoto OGA
Taiwan TAI
Tibet CHT

Not drawn on the map: Ogasawara-shoto. We hold no public-domain boundary for this region, so it is listed rather than guessed at.

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 1,006 in flower of 1,431 examined

Proportion of examined Paederia foetida in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 8 42 19% 10% to 33%
Feb 6 26 23% 11% to 42%
Mar 7 22 32% 16% to 53%
Apr 15 39 38% 25% to 54%
May 29 59 49% 37% to 62%
Jun 46 70 66% 54% to 76%
Jul 101 116 87% 80% to 92%
Aug 209 235 89% 84% to 92%
Sep 278 312 89% 85% to 92%
Oct 233 310 75% 70% to 80%
Nov 54 136 40% 32% to 48%
Dec 20 64 31% 21% to 43%

Peak flowering in Sep. Each bar is the share of Paederia foetida 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. 1,006 of 1,431 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 2,043 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -1.2 °C 12.5 °C 19.6 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 26.7 °C 30.1 °C 31.7 °C
Annual rainfall 1,279 mm 2,079 mm 3,893 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 59 mm 145 mm 676 mm

It is found where winters bring light frost. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 2,043 research-grade observations of Paederia foetida 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 49 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.

  • Apocynum foetidum Burm.f.
  • Crawfurdia paniculata Griseb.
  • Gentiana scandens Lour.
  • Hondbesseion foetidum (L.) Kuntze
  • Hondbesseion tomentosum (Blume) Kuntze
  • Paederia amboinensis Miq.
  • Paederia barbulata Miq.
  • Paederia chinensis Hance
  • Paederia chinensis f. microphylla Honda
  • Paederia chinensis f. tenuissima Masam.
  • Paederia chinensis var. angustifolia Nakai
  • Paederia chinensis var. maritima Koidz.
  • Paederia chinensis var. megaphylla Koidz.
  • Paederia chinensis var. velutina Nakai
  • Paederia corymbosa Noronha
  • Paederia dunniana H.Lév.
  • Paederia esquirolii H.Lév.
  • Paederia foetida f. microphylla (Honda) Tsukaya, Imaichi & J.Yokoy.
  • Paederia foetida var. sessiliflora (Poir.) Baker
  • Paederia laxiflora Merr. ex H.L.Li
  • Paederia longituba Nakai
  • Paederia magnifolia Noronha
  • Paederia mairei H.Lév.
  • Paederia ovata Miq.

and 25 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. 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.