Ruellia simplexC.Wright

softseed wild petunia

WFO wfo-0000400995 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Ruellia simplex, photographed by Center for Urban Ecology
fig. a Center for Urban Ecology, CC0 1.0 / 2022-05-17 / obs. 198695154
Ruellia simplex, photographed by Center for Urban Ecology
fig. b Center for Urban Ecology, CC0 1.0 / obs. 197062483
Ruellia simplex, photographed by Center for Urban Ecology
fig. c Center for Urban Ecology, CC0 1.0 / obs. 195400325
Ruellia simplex, photographed by Ezequiel Vera
fig. d Ezequiel Vera, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 193951895
Ruellia simplex, photographed by Center for Urban Ecology
fig. e Center for Urban Ecology, CC0 1.0 / obs. 187935345
Ruellia simplex, photographed by Center for Urban Ecology
fig. f Center for Urban Ecology, CC0 1.0 / obs. 186747560
Ruellia simplex, photographed by Josiah Londerée
fig. g Josiah Londerée, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 186630944
Ruellia simplex, photographed by er-birds
fig. h er-birds, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 185872671

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 30 botanical countries

Regions where Ruellia simplex is native: Mexico Central, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southeast, Mexico Southwest, Argentina Northeast, Argentina Northwest, Bolivia, Brazil Northeast, Brazil South, Brazil Southeast, Brazil West-Central, Cayman Is., Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Leeward Is., Panamá, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Trinidad-Tobago, Uruguay, Windward Is. Mexico CentralMexico GulfMexico NortheastMexico NorthwestMexico SoutheastMexico SouthwestArgentina NortheastArgentina NorthwestBoliviaBrazil NortheastBrazil SouthBrazil SoutheastBrazil West-CentralCosta RicaCubaDominican RepublicEcuadorGuatemalaHaitiHondurasJamaicaPanamáParaguayPeruPuerto RicoTrinidad-TobagoUruguay Cayman Is.Leeward Is.Windward Is.
Native distribution of Ruellia simplex, 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
Argentina Northeast AGE SOUTHERN AMERICA
Argentina Northwest AGW
Bolivia BOL
Brazil Northeast BZE
Brazil South BZS
Brazil Southeast BZL
Brazil West-Central BZC
Cayman Is. CAY
Costa Rica COS
Cuba CUB
Dominican Republic DOM
Ecuador ECU
Guatemala GUA
Haiti HAI
Honduras HON
Jamaica JAM
Leeward Is. LEE
Panamá PAN
Paraguay PAR
Peru PER
Puerto Rico PUE
Trinidad-Tobago TRT
Uruguay URU
Windward Is. WIN
Mexico Central MXC NORTHERN AMERICA
Mexico Gulf MXG
Mexico Northeast MXE
Mexico Northwest MXN
Mexico Southeast MXT
Mexico Southwest MXS

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 940 in flower of 1,009 examined

Peak flowering in Mar. Each bar is the share of Ruellia simplex 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. 940 of 1,009 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 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.

Also published as 12 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.

  • Arrhostoxylum microphyllum Nees
  • Cryphiacanthus angustifolius Nees
  • Ruellia angustifolia (Nees) Lindau
  • Ruellia brittoniana Leonard
  • Ruellia coerulea Morong
  • Ruellia ignorantiae Herter
  • Ruellia longipes Urb.
  • Ruellia malacosperma Greenm.
  • Ruellia microphylla (Nees) Lindau
  • Ruellia spectabilis Britton
  • Ruellia tweediana Griseb.
  • Ruellia tweedyana Griseb.

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 RUMA9. 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.