Spermacoce stachydeaDC.

WFO wfo-0000312764 Accepted WFO 2026-06 4 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–d · 3 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 3 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.

Spermacoce stachydea, photographed by Mattia Menchetti
fig. a Mattia Menchetti, CC BY 4.0 / 2018-09-18 / obs. 25404393
Spermacoce stachydea, photographed by Mattia Menchetti
fig. b Mattia Menchetti, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 25387377
Spermacoce stachydea, photographed by Mattia Menchetti
fig. c Mattia Menchetti, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 25386941
Spermacoce stachydea, photographed by Mattia Menchetti
fig. d Mattia Menchetti, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 25404420

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 18 botanical countries

Regions where Spermacoce stachydea is native: Benin, Burkina, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sudan-South Sudan, Togo BeninBurkinaCameroonCentral African RepublicChadGabonGambiaGhanaGuineaGuinea-BissauIvory CoastMaliMauritaniaNigerNigeriaSenegalSudan-South SudanTogo
Native distribution of Spermacoce stachydea, 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
Gabon GAB
Gambia GAM
Ghana GHA
Guinea GUI
Guinea-Bissau GNB
Ivory Coast IVO
Mali MLI
Mauritania MTN
Niger NGR
Nigeria NGA
Senegal SEN
Sudan-South Sudan SUD
Togo TOG

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 7 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 leucadea (Hochst. ex Hiern) K.Schum.
  • Borreria stachydea (DC.) Hutch. & Dalziel
  • Borreria stachydea var. phyllocephala (DC.) Hepper
  • Spermacoce leucadea Hochst. ex Hiern
  • Spermacoce phyllocephala DC.
  • Spermacoce stachydea var. phyllocephala (DC.) J.-P.Lebrun & Stork
  • Spermacoce stachydea var. stachydea

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.