Pavonia senegalensis(Cav.) Leistner

WFO wfo-0000473759 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 4 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 4 times, 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.

Pavonia senegalensis, photographed by Robert Taylor
fig. a Robert Taylor, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-01-28 / obs. 177780900
Pavonia senegalensis, photographed by Robert Taylor
fig. b Robert Taylor, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 177801355
Pavonia senegalensis, photographed by Robert Taylor
fig. c Robert Taylor, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 126736581
Pavonia senegalensis, photographed by Robert Taylor
fig. d Robert Taylor, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 62002858
Pavonia senegalensis, photographed by Robert Taylor
fig. e Robert Taylor, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 177780836
Pavonia senegalensis, photographed by Robert Taylor
fig. f Robert Taylor, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 177801406
Pavonia senegalensis, photographed by Robert Taylor
fig. g Robert Taylor, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 126737055
Pavonia senegalensis, photographed by Robert Taylor
fig. h Robert Taylor, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 62002893

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 21 botanical countries

Regions where Pavonia senegalensis is native: Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burkina, Cape Provinces, Caprivi Strip, Chad, DR Congo, Egypt, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Nigeria, Northern Provinces, Senegal, Sudan-South Sudan, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe AngolaBeninBotswanaBurkinaCape ProvincesCaprivi StripChadDR CongoEgyptMaliMauritaniaMozambiqueNamibiaNigerNigeriaNorthern ProvincesSenegalSudan-South SudanTanzaniaZambiaZimbabwe
Native distribution of Pavonia senegalensis, 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
Botswana BOT
Burkina BKN
Cape Provinces CPP
Caprivi Strip CPV
Chad CHA
DR Congo ZAI
Egypt EGY
Mali MLI
Mauritania MTN
Mozambique MOZ
Namibia NAM
Niger NGR
Nigeria NGA
Northern Provinces TVL
Senegal SEN
Sudan-South Sudan SUD
Tanzania TAN
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 47 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 6.5 °C 8.7 °C 10.9 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 29.8 °C 33.7 °C 34.3 °C
Annual rainfall 377 mm 418 mm 603 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 1 mm 3 mm 9 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 47 research-grade observations of Pavonia senegalensis 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.

  • Hibiscus baumii Gürke
  • Hibiscus senegalensis Cav.
  • Malache hirsuta (Guill. & Perr.) Kuntze
  • Pavonia baumii Gürke
  • Pavonia hirsuta Guill. & Perr.
  • Pavonia hirsuta var. microphylla Ulbr.
  • Pavonia insignis Fenzl ex Webb
  • Pavonia zawadae Ulbr.

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.