Rauvolfia serpentinaBenth. ex Kurz

Snakerootserpentine wood

WFO wfo-0000295174 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Rauvolfia serpentina, photographed by John Kenrick Gibson
fig. a John Kenrick Gibson, CC0 1.0 / 2022-04-18 / obs. 190828289
Rauvolfia serpentina, photographed by Sabarni Sarker
fig. b Sabarni Sarker, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 120176329
Rauvolfia serpentina, photographed by OnePlanet
fig. c OnePlanet, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 100387611
Rauvolfia serpentina, photographed by Manoj Karingamadathil
fig. d Manoj Karingamadathil, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 47919189
Rauvolfia serpentina, photographed by Dinesh Valke
fig. e Dinesh Valke, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 175353871
Rauvolfia serpentina, photographed by Dinesh Valke
fig. f Dinesh Valke, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 194998551
Rauvolfia serpentina, photographed by Dinesh Valke
fig. g Dinesh Valke, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 199041064
Rauvolfia serpentina, photographed by Haneesh K M
fig. h Haneesh K M, CC0 1.0 / obs. 203437320

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 17 botanical countries

Regions where Rauvolfia serpentina is native: China South-Central, Andaman Is., Assam, Bangladesh, Cambodia, East Himalaya, India, Jawa, Laccadive Is., Laos, Lesser Sunda Is., Malaya, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam China South-CentralAssamBangladeshCambodiaEast HimalayaIndiaJawaLaosLesser Sunda Is.MalayaMyanmarNepalSri LankaThailandVietnam Andaman Is.Laccadive Is.
Native distribution of Rauvolfia serpentina, 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
Cambodia CBD
East Himalaya EHM
India IND
Jawa JAW
Laccadive Is. LDV
Laos LAO
Lesser Sunda Is. LSI
Malaya MLY
Myanmar MYA
Nepal NEP
Sri Lanka SRL
Thailand THA
Vietnam VIE
China South-Central CHC ASIA-TEMPERATE

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 206 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 7.0 °C 17.0 °C 22.7 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 30.2 °C 34.2 °C 40.1 °C
Annual rainfall 903 mm 2,578 mm 4,401 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 3 mm 32 mm 121 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 206 research-grade observations of Rauvolfia serpentina 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.

  • Ophioxylon album Gaertn.
  • Ophioxylon obversum Miq.
  • Ophioxylon salutiferum Salisb.
  • Ophioxylon serpentinum L.
  • Ophioxylon trifoliatum Gaertn.
  • Rauvolfia obversa (Miq.) Baill.
  • Rauvolfia serpentina var. obversa (Miq.) Bakh.f.
  • Rauvolfia trifoliata (Gaertn.) Baill.

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.