Pontederia vaginalisBurm.f.

heartshape false pickerelweed

WFO wfo-0000501333 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Pontederia vaginalis, photographed by chiuluan
fig. a chiuluan, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-06-06 / obs. 203886848
Pontederia vaginalis, photographed by chiuluan
fig. b chiuluan, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 199424471
Pontederia vaginalis, photographed by chiuluan
fig. c chiuluan, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 199424563
Pontederia vaginalis, photographed by chiuluan
fig. d chiuluan, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 198427609
Pontederia vaginalis, photographed by chiuluan
fig. e chiuluan, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 198163307
Pontederia vaginalis, photographed by chiuluan
fig. f chiuluan, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 198428724
Pontederia vaginalis, photographed by 葉子
fig. g 葉子, CC0 1.0 / obs. 179915429
Pontederia vaginalis, photographed by 葉子
fig. h 葉子, CC0 1.0 / obs. 179915720

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 34 botanical countries

Regions where Pontederia vaginalis is native: Afghanistan, China North-Central, China South-Central, China Southeast, Hainan, Inner Mongolia, Japan, Korea, Nansei-shoto, Andaman Is., Assam, Bangladesh, Borneo, Cambodia, East Himalaya, India, Jawa, Laos, Lesser Sunda Is., Malaya, Maluku, Myanmar, Nepal, New Guinea, Pakistan, Philippines, Sulawesi, Sumatera, Thailand, Vietnam, West Himalaya, Northern Territory, Queensland, Western Australia AfghanistanChina North-CentralChina South-CentralChina SoutheastHainanInner MongoliaJapanAssamBangladeshBorneoCambodiaEast HimalayaIndiaJawaLaosLesser Sunda Is.MalayaMalukuMyanmarNepalNew GuineaPakistanPhilippinesSulawesiSumateraThailandVietnamWest HimalayaNorthern TerritoryQueenslandWestern Australia KoreaNansei-shotoAndaman Is.
Native distribution of Pontederia vaginalis, 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
New Guinea NWG
Pakistan PAK
Philippines PHI
Sulawesi SUL
Sumatera SUM
Thailand THA
Vietnam VIE
West Himalaya WHM
Afghanistan AFG ASIA-TEMPERATE
China North-Central CHN
China South-Central CHC
China Southeast CHS
Hainan CHH
Inner Mongolia CHI
Japan JAP
Korea KOR
Nansei-shoto NNS
Northern Territory NTA AUSTRALASIA
Queensland QLD
Western Australia WAU

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 133 in flower of 214 examined

Peak flowering in Mar. Each bar is the share of Pontederia vaginalis 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. 133 of 214 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. One month has fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for it. 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 980 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -1.2 °C 14.3 °C 24.0 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 27.5 °C 30.0 °C 34.5 °C
Annual rainfall 1,292 mm 2,690 mm 4,272 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 23 mm 184 mm 765 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 980 research-grade observations of Pontederia vaginalis 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 15 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.

  • Gomphima vaginalis Raf.
  • Monochoria loureiroi Kunth
  • Monochoria pauciflora (Blume) Kunth
  • Monochoria vaginalis (Burm.f.) C.Presl ex Kunth
  • Monochoria vaginalis C.Presl
  • Monochoria vaginalis var. pauciflora (Blume) Merr.
  • Monochoria vaginalis var. plantaginea (Roxb.) Solms
  • Pontederia alba Buch.-Ham. ex Wall.
  • Pontederia cordata Lour.
  • Pontederia lanceolata Wall. ex Kunth
  • Pontederia loureiroana Schult.f.
  • Pontederia ovata Hook. & Arn.
  • Pontederia pauciflora Blume
  • Pontederia racemosa Buch.-Ham. ex Wall.
  • Pontederia vaginata Royle

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. USDA PLANTS Database. common name, checklist symbol MOVA. public domain. 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.