Rotheca myricoides(Hochst.) Steane & Mabb.

WFO wfo-0000298156 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 5 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 5 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.

Rotheca myricoides, photographed by Jimmy Whatmore
fig. a Jimmy Whatmore, CC0 1.0 / 2018-10-19 / obs. 102141257
Rotheca myricoides, photographed by Peter Warren
fig. b Peter Warren, CC0 1.0 / obs. 16079228
Rotheca myricoides, photographed by Jimmy Whatmore
fig. c Jimmy Whatmore, CC0 1.0 / obs. 102141183
Rotheca myricoides, photographed by Peter Warren
fig. d Peter Warren, CC0 1.0 / obs. 16079232
Rotheca myricoides, photographed by Jacek Pietruszewski
fig. e Jacek Pietruszewski, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 63286603
Rotheca myricoides, photographed by Andrew Hankey
fig. f Andrew Hankey, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 15712139
Rotheca myricoides, photographed by Jacek Pietruszewski
fig. g Jacek Pietruszewski, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 63286652
Rotheca myricoides, photographed by Benjamin Fredlund
fig. h Benjamin Fredlund, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 117270408

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.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Accession
K006305394
Filed as
Rotheca myricoides (Hochst.) Steane & Mabb.
Det. by
Vollesen, K.
Collected
Nanyeni, L.; Davidson, C.R. 2018-03-30
Origin
NA
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 22 botanical countries

Regions where Rotheca myricoides is native: Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Caprivi Strip, Djibouti, DR Congo, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Kenya, KwaZulu-Natal, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Northern Provinces, Rwanda, Somalia, Sudan-South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe AngolaBotswanaBurundiCaprivi StripDjiboutiDR CongoEritreaEswatiniEthiopiaKenyaKwaZulu-NatalMalawiMozambiqueNamibiaNorthern ProvincesRwandaSomaliaSudan-South SudanTanzaniaUgandaZambiaZimbabwe
Native distribution of Rotheca myricoides, 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
Botswana BOT
Burundi BUR
Caprivi Strip CPV
Djibouti DJI
DR Congo ZAI
Eritrea ERI
Eswatini SWZ
Ethiopia ETH
Kenya KEN
KwaZulu-Natal NAT
Malawi MLW
Mozambique MOZ
Namibia NAM
Northern Provinces TVL
Rwanda RWA
Somalia SOM
Sudan-South Sudan SUD
Tanzania TAN
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 280 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 4.2 °C 9.8 °C 24.2 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 23.8 °C 26.9 °C 31.2 °C
Annual rainfall 557 mm 992 mm 2,934 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 5 mm 73 mm 505 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 280 research-grade observations of Rotheca myricoides 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 73 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.

  • Clerodendrum bequaertii De Wild.
  • Clerodendrum bequaertii var. debeerstii De Wild.
  • Clerodendrum corbisieri De Wild.
  • Clerodendrum dekindtii Gürke
  • Clerodendrum dekindtii var. dinteri B.Thomas
  • Clerodendrum dicolor (Klotzsch) Vatke
  • Clerodendrum discolor var. duemmeri B.Thomas
  • Clerodendrum discolor var. kilimandscharense B.Thomas
  • Clerodendrum discolor var. macrocalyx Moldenke
  • Clerodendrum discolor var. oppositifolium B.Thomas
  • Clerodendrum discolor var. pluriflorum Gürke
  • Clerodendrum discolor var. rubricalyx Moldenke
  • Clerodendrum dumale (Hiern) K.Schum.
  • Clerodendrum dumale Baker
  • Clerodendrum erectum De Wild.
  • Clerodendrum muenzneri B.Thomas
  • Clerodendrum myricoides (Hochst.) R.Br. ex Vatke
  • Clerodendrum myricoides f. alatipetiolatum R.Fern.
  • Clerodendrum myricoides f. angustilobatum R.Fern.
  • Clerodendrum myricoides f. brevilobatum R.Fern.
  • Clerodendrum myricoides f. cubangense R.Fern.
  • Clerodendrum myricoides f. lanceolatilobatum R.Fern.
  • Clerodendrum myricoides f. lobulatum R.Fern.
  • Clerodendrum myricoides f. reflexilobatum R.Fern.

and 49 more.

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.