Siphonochilus kirkii(Hook.f.) B.L.Burtt

WFO wfo-0000553592 Accepted WFO 2026-06 3 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–c · 2 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 2 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.

Siphonochilus kirkii, photographed by i_c_riddell
fig. a i_c_riddell, CC BY 4.0 / 2014-11-29 / obs. 1416082
Siphonochilus kirkii, photographed by i_c_riddell
fig. b i_c_riddell, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 451037267
Siphonochilus kirkii, photographed by i_c_riddell
fig. c i_c_riddell, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 1416084

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
Smithsonian, US National Herbarium
Accession
US 3725031
Filed as
Siphonochilus kirkii (Hook.f.) B.L.Burtt
Det. by
Gostel, Morgan R., (BRIT), Botanical Research Institute of Texas (UNITED STATES)
Collected
M. Sedaghatpour, K. S. Ingram, M. Marcelli & S. Vo 2016-06-16
Origin
US
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC0 1.0)

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 12 botanical countries

Regions where Siphonochilus kirkii is native: Caprivi Strip, Central African Republic, Chad, DR Congo, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Sudan-South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe Caprivi StripCentral African RepublicChadDR CongoKenyaMalawiMozambiqueSudan-South SudanTanzaniaUgandaZambiaZimbabwe
Native distribution of Siphonochilus kirkii, 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
Caprivi Strip CPV AFRICA
Central African Republic CAF
Chad CHA
DR Congo ZAI
Kenya KEN
Malawi MLW
Mozambique MOZ
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 95 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 9.7 °C 11.4 °C 18.2 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 27.6 °C 31.6 °C 35.4 °C
Annual rainfall 613 mm 917 mm 1,398 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 1 mm 3 mm 68 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 95 research-grade observations of Siphonochilus kirkii 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 13 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.

  • Cienkowskia kirkii Hook.f.
  • Cienkowskiella kirkii (Hook.f.) Y.K.Kam
  • Kaempferia carsonii Baker
  • Kaempferia decora Druten
  • Kaempferia kirkii (Hook.f.) Kerch.
  • Kaempferia kirkii (Hook.f.) Wittm. & Perring
  • Kaempferia kirkii (Hook.f.) Pynaert
  • Kaempferia kirkii var. elatior Stapf
  • Kaempferia montagui F.M.Leight.
  • Kaempferia pallida De Wild.
  • Kaempferia rosea Baker
  • Siphonochilus carsonii (Baker) Lock
  • Siphonochilus decorus (Druten) Lock

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.