Staelia virgata(Willd.) K.Schum.

WFO wfo-0000315041 Accepted WFO 2026-06 7 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–g · 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.

Staelia virgata, photographed by aacocucci
fig. a aacocucci, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-03-08 / obs. 182912498
Staelia virgata, photographed by Junior França
fig. b Junior França, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 14692322
Staelia virgata, photographed by Junior França
fig. c Junior França, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 14692326
Staelia virgata, photographed by Junior França
fig. d Junior França, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 14692332
Staelia virgata, photographed by Junior França
fig. e Junior França, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 14692337
Staelia virgata, photographed by Junior França
fig. f Junior França, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 14692348
Staelia virgata, photographed by Junior França
fig. g Junior França, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 14692354

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 9 botanical countries

Regions where Staelia virgata is native: Argentina Northeast, Argentina Northwest, Bolivia, Brazil North, Brazil Northeast, Brazil South, Brazil Southeast, Brazil West-Central, Paraguay Argentina NortheastArgentina NorthwestBoliviaBrazil NorthBrazil NortheastBrazil SouthBrazil SoutheastBrazil West-CentralParaguay
Native distribution of Staelia virgata, 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
Argentina Northwest AGW
Bolivia BOL
Brazil North BZN
Brazil Northeast BZE
Brazil South BZS
Brazil Southeast BZL
Brazil West-Central BZC
Paraguay PAR

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 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.

  • Borreria exigua S.Moore
  • Borreria finitima S.Moore
  • Borreria herzogii S.Moore
  • Mitracarpus virgatus (Willd.) Cham. & Schltdl. ex DC.
  • Mitracarpus virgatus Cham. & Schltdl.
  • Spermacoce exigua (S.Moore) Govaerts
  • Spermacoce herzogii (S.Moore) Govaerts
  • Spermacoce virgata Willd.
  • Spermacoce virgata Link ex Roem. & Schult.
  • Staelia caespitosa Griseb.
  • Staelia filifolia Rusby
  • Staelia herzogii (S.Moore) R.M.Salas & E.L.Cabral

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.