Talinum fruticosum(L.) Juss.

Ceylon spinach

WFO wfo-0000454637 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Talinum fruticosum, photographed by Maria Janeiro
fig. a Maria Janeiro, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-21 / obs. 199334967

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 39 botanical countries

Regions where Talinum fruticosum is native: Florida, Mexico Central, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southeast, Mexico Southwest, Argentina Northeast, Argentina Northwest, Bahamas, Bolivia, Brazil North, Brazil Northeast, Brazil South, Brazil Southeast, Brazil West-Central, Cayman Is., Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Leeward Is., Netherlands Antilles, Nicaragua, Panamá, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Trinidad-Tobago, Turks-Caicos Is., Venezuela, Venezuelan Antilles, Windward Is. FloridaMexico CentralMexico GulfMexico NortheastMexico NorthwestMexico SoutheastMexico SouthwestArgentina NortheastArgentina NorthwestBoliviaBrazil NorthBrazil NortheastBrazil SouthBrazil SoutheastBrazil West-CentralColombiaCosta RicaCubaDominican RepublicEcuadorEl SalvadorGuatemalaHaitiHondurasJamaicaNicaraguaPanamáParaguayPeruPuerto RicoTrinidad-TobagoVenezuela BahamasCayman Is.Leeward Is.Netherlands AntillesTurks-Caicos Is.Venezuelan AntillesWindward Is.
Native distribution of Talinum fruticosum, 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. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Argentina Northeast AGE SOUTHERN AMERICA
Argentina Northwest AGW
Bahamas BAH
Bolivia BOL
Brazil North BZN
Brazil Northeast BZE
Brazil South BZS
Brazil Southeast BZL
Brazil West-Central BZC
Cayman Is. CAY
Colombia CLM
Costa Rica COS
Cuba CUB
Dominican Republic DOM
Ecuador ECU
El Salvador ELS
Guatemala GUA
Haiti HAI
Honduras HON
Jamaica JAM
Leeward Is. LEE
Netherlands Antilles NLA
Nicaragua NIC
Panamá PAN
Paraguay PAR
Peru PER
Puerto Rico PUE
Trinidad-Tobago TRT
Turks-Caicos Is. TCI
Venezuela VEN
Venezuelan Antilles VNA
Windward Is. WIN
Florida FLA NORTHERN AMERICA
Mexico Central MXC
Mexico Gulf MXG
Mexico Northeast MXE
Mexico Northwest MXN
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.

Flowering 316 in flower of 343 examined

Proportion of examined Talinum fruticosum in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 24 25 96% 80% to 99%
Feb 23 24 96% 80% to 99%
Mar 32 33 97% 85% to 99%
Apr 53 55 96% 88% to 99%
May 33 38 87% 73% to 94%
Jun 19 23 83% 63% to 93%
Jul 18 20 90% 70% to 97%
Aug 18 19 95% 75% to 99%
Sep 28 30 93% 79% to 98%
Oct 18 24 75% 55% to 88%
Nov 25 26 96% 81% to 99%
Dec 25 26 96% 81% to 99%

Peak flowering in Mar. Each bar is the share of Talinum fruticosum 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. 316 of 343 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 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.

Where it actually grows measured, from 1,986 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 11.0 °C 20.5 °C 24.2 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 26.5 °C 30.2 °C 36.2 °C
Annual rainfall 745 mm 1,407 mm 3,289 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 9 mm 84 mm 325 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 1,986 research-grade observations of Talinum fruticosum 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. Climate from CHELSA V2.1 (Karger et al. 2017); occurrences from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 21 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.

  • Calandrinia andrewsii (Sweet) Sweet
  • Calandrinia lockhartii Sweet
  • Calandrinia pachypoda Diels
  • Claytonia triangularis (Jacq.) Kuntze
  • Claytonia triangularis var. crassifolia (Jacq.) Kuntze
  • Portulaca crassicaule Jacq.
  • Portulaca crassifolia Jacq.
  • Portulaca fruticosa L.
  • Portulaca racemosa L.
  • Portulaca triangularis Jacq.
  • Ruelingia triangularis (Jacq.) Ehrh.
  • Talinum andrewsii Sweet
  • Talinum attenuatum Rose & Standl.
  • Talinum confusum Rose & Standl.
  • Talinum crassifolium (Jacq.) Willd.
  • Talinum fruticosum Macfad.
  • Talinum mucronatum Kunth
  • Talinum racemosum (L.) Rohrb.
  • Talinum revolutum Kunth
  • Talinum triangulare (Jacq.) Willd.
  • Talinum triangulare var. purpureum Ram.Goyena

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. USDA PLANTS Database. common name, checklist symbol TATR2. public domain. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. 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.