Syncolostemon canescens(Gürke) D.F.Otieno

WFO wfo-0000810329 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Syncolostemon canescens, photographed by Ryan Donnelly
fig. a Ryan Donnelly, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-27 / obs. 201911480
Syncolostemon canescens, photographed by Caroline Voget
fig. b Caroline Voget, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 199914657
Syncolostemon canescens, photographed by James Deacon
fig. c James Deacon, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 116376673
Syncolostemon canescens, photographed by Lauren Gillett
fig. d Lauren Gillett, CC0 1.0 / obs. 66201867
Syncolostemon canescens, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. e Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 139189604
Syncolostemon canescens, photographed by Manuel R Popp
fig. f Manuel R Popp, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 172402315
Syncolostemon canescens, photographed by rosshawkins
fig. g rosshawkins, CC0 1.0 / obs. 144048466
Syncolostemon canescens, photographed by rosshawkins
fig. h rosshawkins, CC0 1.0 / obs. 134229186

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 10 botanical countries

Regions where Syncolostemon canescens is native: Angola, Botswana, Cape Provinces, Caprivi Strip, Eswatini, KwaZulu-Natal, Mozambique, Namibia, Northern Provinces, Zimbabwe AngolaBotswanaCape ProvincesCaprivi StripEswatiniKwaZulu-NatalMozambiqueNamibiaNorthern ProvincesZimbabwe
Native distribution of Syncolostemon canescens, 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
Angola ANG AFRICA
Botswana BOT
Cape Provinces CPP
Caprivi Strip CPV
Eswatini SWZ
KwaZulu-Natal NAT
Mozambique MOZ
Namibia NAM
Northern Provinces TVL
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.

Flowering 35 in flower of 35 examined

Peak flowering in Jan. Each bar is the share of Syncolostemon canescens observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 35 of 35 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 9 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 11 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.

  • Hemizygia canescens (Gürke) Ashby
  • Hemizygia dinteri Briq.
  • Hemizygia mossiana (R.D.Good) Ashby
  • Hemizygia petrensis (Hiern) Ashby
  • Orthosiphon affinis N.E.Br.
  • Orthosiphon canescens Gürke
  • Orthosiphon engleri Perkins
  • Orthosiphon holubii N.E.Br.
  • Orthosiphon mossianus R.D.Good
  • Orthosiphon petrensis Hiern
  • Orthosiphon varians N.E.Br.

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.