Pancratium tenuifoliumHochst.

WFO wfo-0000729628 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Pancratium tenuifolium, photographed by Robert Taylor
fig. a Robert Taylor, CC BY 4.0 / 2020-01-15 / obs. 61947170

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
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Accession
K000354601
Filed as
Pancratium tenuifolium Hochst. ex A.Rich.
Det. by
Hepper, F.N.
Collected
Parsons, A.C. 1907-07-06
Origin
NG
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 31 botanical countries

Regions where Pancratium tenuifolium is native: Benin, Botswana, Burkina, Cameroon, Cape Provinces, Central African Republic, Chad, Djibouti, DR Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Northern Provinces, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan-South Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe BeninBotswanaBurkinaCameroonCape ProvincesCentral African RepublicChadDjiboutiDR CongoEritreaEthiopiaGhanaGuineaGuinea-BissauIvory CoastKenyaMalawiMaliMozambiqueNamibiaNigeriaNorthern ProvincesSenegalSierra LeoneSomaliaSudan-South SudanTanzaniaTogoUgandaZambiaZimbabwe
Native distribution of Pancratium tenuifolium, 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
Benin BEN AFRICA
Botswana BOT
Burkina BKN
Cameroon CMN
Cape Provinces CPP
Central African Republic CAF
Chad CHA
Djibouti DJI
DR Congo ZAI
Eritrea ERI
Ethiopia ETH
Ghana GHA
Guinea GUI
Guinea-Bissau GNB
Ivory Coast IVO
Kenya KEN
Malawi MLW
Mali MLI
Mozambique MOZ
Namibia NAM
Nigeria NGA
Northern Provinces TVL
Senegal SEN
Sierra Leone SIE
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.

Where it actually grows measured, from 214 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 5.3 °C 10.2 °C 18.0 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 30.1 °C 31.8 °C 34.6 °C
Annual rainfall 249 mm 489 mm 926 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 1 mm 12 mm 31 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 214 research-grade observations of Pancratium tenuifolium 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 3 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.

  • Chapmanolirion juttae Dinter
  • Pancratium chapmanni Harv.
  • Pancratium hirtum A.Chev.

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.