Pentapetes phoeniceaL.

flor impia

WFO wfo-0000476060 Accepted WFO 2026-06 3 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–c · 3 separate observations

Pentapetes phoenicea, photographed by Utain Pummarin
fig. a Utain Pummarin, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-11-02 / obs. 175889834
Pentapetes phoenicea, photographed by Paulmathi Vinod
fig. b Paulmathi Vinod, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 139902460
Pentapetes phoenicea, photographed by Sabarni Sarker
fig. c Sabarni Sarker, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 103457331

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 15 botanical countries

Regions where Pentapetes phoenicea is native: China South-Central, China Southeast, Assam, Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Laos, Malaya, Myanmar, Nepal, New Guinea, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam China South-CentralChina SoutheastAssamBangladeshCambodiaIndiaLaosMalayaMyanmarNepalNew GuineaPhilippinesSri LankaThailandVietnam
Native distribution of Pentapetes phoenicea, 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
Assam ASS ASIA-TROPICAL
Bangladesh BAN
Cambodia CBD
India IND
Laos LAO
Malaya MLY
Myanmar MYA
Nepal NEP
New Guinea NWG
Philippines PHI
Sri Lanka SRL
Thailand THA
Vietnam VIE
China South-Central CHC ASIA-TEMPERATE
China Southeast CHS

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 44 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 9.7 °C 16.9 °C 22.7 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 31.6 °C 35.4 °C 40.5 °C
Annual rainfall 893 mm 1,465 mm 2,088 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 4 mm 35 mm 57 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 44 research-grade observations of Pentapetes phoenicea 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 10 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.

  • Assonia phoenicea (L.) Raeusch.
  • Blattaria phoenicea Kuntze
  • Brotera phoenicea (L.) Cav.
  • Cavanilla phoenicea J.F.Gmel.
  • Dombeya phoenicea Cav.
  • Eriorhaphe phoenicea (L.) Bamps
  • Eriorhaphe punicea Miq.
  • Pentapetes angustifolia Blume
  • Pentapetes cebuana Blanco
  • Pentapetes coccinea Blanco

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.