Solanum volubileSw.

WFO wfo-0001032475 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Solanum volubile, photographed by Jake Rehage
fig. a Jake Rehage, CC0 1.0 / 2020-08-16 / obs. 90368022
Solanum volubile, photographed by Alexis López Hernández
fig. b Alexis López Hernández, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 68106837
Solanum volubile, photographed by Alexis López Hernández
fig. c Alexis López Hernández, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 67984526
Solanum volubile, photographed by Alexis López Hernández
fig. d Alexis López Hernández, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 67984296
Solanum volubile, photographed by Lena Struwe
fig. e Lena Struwe, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 3716444
Solanum volubile, photographed by Skjold Søndergaard
fig. f Skjold Søndergaard, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 187584082
Solanum volubile, photographed by Alexis López Hernández
fig. g Alexis López Hernández, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 68107687
Solanum volubile, photographed by Alexis López Hernández
fig. h Alexis López Hernández, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 67985224

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
The New York Botanical Garden
Accession
00744242
Filed as
Solanum volubile Sw.
Det. by
S. R. Stern 2022-02-01
Collected
M. H. Grayum 1984-10-07
Origin
CR
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 18 botanical countries

Regions where Solanum volubile is native: Mexico Central, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Southeast, Mexico Southwest, Argentina Northeast, Belize, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Nicaragua, Peru, Trinidad-Tobago, Venezuela Mexico CentralMexico GulfMexico NortheastMexico SoutheastMexico SouthwestArgentina NortheastBelizeColombiaCosta RicaEcuadorFrench GuianaGuatemalaGuyanaHondurasNicaraguaPeruTrinidad-TobagoVenezuela
Native distribution of Solanum volubile, 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
Argentina Northeast AGE SOUTHERN AMERICA
Belize BLZ
Colombia CLM
Costa Rica COS
Ecuador ECU
French Guiana FRG
Guatemala GUA
Guyana GUY
Honduras HON
Nicaragua NIC
Peru PER
Trinidad-Tobago TRT
Venezuela VEN
Mexico Central MXC NORTHERN AMERICA
Mexico Gulf MXG
Mexico Northeast MXE
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.

Where it actually grows measured, from 132 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 18.1 °C 22.0 °C 24.8 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 27.8 °C 30.9 °C 34.2 °C
Annual rainfall 1,352 mm 2,525 mm 4,446 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 12 mm 105 mm 597 mm

It is not found anywhere that gets close to freezing. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 132 research-grade observations of Solanum volubile 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 15 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.

  • Solanum adhaerens Willd.
  • Solanum donnellsmithii J.M.Coult.
  • Solanum donnellsmithii var. donnellsmithii
  • Solanum donnellsmithii var. spinosior J.M.Coult.
  • Solanum enoplocalyx Dunal
  • Solanum enoplocalyx var. enoplocalyx
  • Solanum humboldtii Dunal
  • Solanum humboldtii var. diacanthum Dunal
  • Solanum humboldtii var. humboldtii
  • Solanum lanceifolium var. scabrum (Vahl) M.Gómez
  • Solanum lanceifolium var. volubile (Sw.) Sendtn.
  • Solanum purulense Donn.Sm.
  • Solanum scabrum Kunth
  • Solanum scabrum Vahl
  • Solanum scabrum subsp. scabrum

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.