Spermacoce filifolia(Schumach. & Thonn.) J.-P.Lebrun & Stork

WFO wfo-0000312415 Accepted WFO 2026-06 4 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–d · 4 separate observations

Spermacoce filifolia, photographed by Mattia Menchetti
fig. a Mattia Menchetti, CC BY 4.0 / 2018-09-17 / obs. 25386411
Spermacoce filifolia, photographed by Mattia Menchetti
fig. b Mattia Menchetti, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 25344293
Spermacoce filifolia, photographed by Mattia Menchetti
fig. c Mattia Menchetti, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 25490269
Spermacoce filifolia, photographed by Mattia Menchetti
fig. d Mattia Menchetti, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 25380167

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
K001562239
Filed as
Spermacoce filifolia (Schumach. & Thonn.) J.-P.Lebrun & Stork
Det. by
Wieringa, J.J.
Collected
de Kruif, A.P.M. 1979-10-22
Origin
CI
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 20 botanical countries

Regions where Spermacoce filifolia is native: Benin, Burkina, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, DR Congo, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, Sudan-South Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Zambia, Zimbabwe BeninBurkinaCameroonCentral African RepublicChadDR CongoGhanaGuineaGuinea-BissauIvory CoastMalawiMaliMauritaniaNigeriaSenegalSudan-South SudanTanzaniaTogoZambiaZimbabwe
Native distribution of Spermacoce filifolia, 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
Benin BEN AFRICA
Burkina BKN
Cameroon CMN
Central African Republic CAF
Chad CHA
DR Congo ZAI
Ghana GHA
Guinea GUI
Guinea-Bissau GNB
Ivory Coast IVO
Malawi MLW
Mali MLI
Mauritania MTN
Nigeria NGA
Senegal SEN
Sudan-South Sudan SUD
Tanzania TAN
Togo TOG
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.

Also published as 3 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.

  • Borreria filifolia (Schumach. & Thonn.) K.Schum.
  • Octodon filifolius Schumach. & Thonn.
  • Spermacoce filifolia Perr. & Lepr. ex DC.

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.