Rauvolfia afraSond.

WFO wfo-0000295012 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Rauvolfia afra, photographed by Mahomed Desai
fig. a Mahomed Desai, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-10 / obs. 196764726
Rauvolfia afra, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. b Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 182969641
Rauvolfia afra, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. c Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 171860313
Rauvolfia afra, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. d Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 141016590
Rauvolfia afra, photographed by Margaret Burger
fig. e Margaret Burger, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 134082923
Rauvolfia afra, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. f Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 137972840
Rauvolfia afra, photographed by Margaret Burger
fig. g Margaret Burger, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 119966210
Rauvolfia afra, photographed by Shaun Swanepoel
fig. h Shaun Swanepoel, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 106822653

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 24 botanical countries

Regions where Rauvolfia afra is native: Angola, Benin, Cameroon, Cape Provinces, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, DR Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eswatini, Gabon, Gulf of Guinea Is., Kenya, KwaZulu-Natal, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Northern Provinces, Sudan-South Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe AngolaBeninCameroonCape ProvincesCentral African RepublicChadCongoDR CongoEquatorial GuineaEswatiniGabonGulf of Guinea Is.KenyaKwaZulu-NatalMalawiMozambiqueNigeriaNorthern ProvincesSudan-South SudanTanzaniaTogoUgandaZambiaZimbabwe
Native distribution of Rauvolfia afra, 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
Cameroon CMN
Cape Provinces CPP
Central African Republic CAF
Chad CHA
Congo CON
DR Congo ZAI
Equatorial Guinea EQG
Eswatini SWZ
Gabon GAB
Gulf of Guinea Is. GGI
Kenya KEN
KwaZulu-Natal NAT
Malawi MLW
Mozambique MOZ
Nigeria NGA
Northern Provinces TVL
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 534 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 5.0 °C 11.5 °C 15.4 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 20.8 °C 26.2 °C 30.6 °C
Annual rainfall 601 mm 994 mm 1,194 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 15 mm 97 mm 155 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 534 research-grade observations of Rauvolfia afra 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 16 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.

  • Rauvolfia afra var. natalensis Stapf ex Hiern
  • Rauvolfia caffra Sond.
  • Rauvolfia caffra subsp. natalensis Stapf ex Hiern
  • Rauvolfia goetzei Stapf
  • Rauvolfia gonioclada K.Schum. ex Stapf
  • Rauvolfia inebrians K.Schum.
  • Rauvolfia leucopoda K.Schum. ex De Wild. & T.Durand
  • Rauvolfia macrophylla Stapf
  • Rauvolfia mayombensis Pellegr.
  • Rauvolfia natalensis Sond.
  • Rauvolfia obliquinervis Stapf
  • Rauvolfia ochrosioides K.Schum.
  • Rauvolfia oxyphylla Stapf
  • Rauvolfia tchibangensis Pellegr.
  • Rauvolfia verticillata A.Chev.
  • Rauvolfia welwitschii Stapf

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.