Verbena carolinaL.

Carolina vervain

WFO wfo-0000331750 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Verbena carolina, photographed by Alexis López Hernández
fig. a Alexis López Hernández, CC BY 4.0 / 2020-08-02 / obs. 88329615
Verbena carolina, photographed by Alexis López Hernández
fig. b Alexis López Hernández, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 88328774
Verbena carolina, photographed by Alexis López Hernández
fig. c Alexis López Hernández, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 88329604
Verbena carolina, photographed by Sam Kieschnick
fig. d Sam Kieschnick, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 11202952
Verbena carolina, photographed by Neptalí Ramírez Marcial
fig. e Neptalí Ramírez Marcial, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 92043996
Verbena carolina, photographed by Neptalí Ramírez Marcial
fig. f Neptalí Ramírez Marcial, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 166369220
Verbena carolina, photographed by Neptalí Ramírez Marcial
fig. g Neptalí Ramírez Marcial, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 149684441
Verbena carolina, photographed by Neptalí Ramírez Marcial
fig. h Neptalí Ramírez Marcial, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 127870191

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
K000470567
Filed as
Verbena carolina L.
Det. by
Perry, L.M.
Collected
Galeotti, H.G. 1840-06-01
Origin
MX
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 11 botanical countries

Regions where Verbena carolina is native: Arizona, Mexico Central, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southeast, Mexico Southwest, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua ArizonaMexico CentralMexico GulfMexico NortheastMexico NorthwestMexico SoutheastMexico SouthwestEl SalvadorGuatemalaHondurasNicaragua
Native distribution of Verbena carolina, 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
Arizona ARI NORTHERN AMERICA
Mexico Central MXC
Mexico Gulf MXG
Mexico Northeast MXE
Mexico Northwest MXN
Mexico Southeast MXT
Mexico Southwest MXS
El Salvador ELS SOUTHERN AMERICA
Guatemala GUA
Honduras HON
Nicaragua NIC

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.

Where it actually grows measured, from 210 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -0.7 °C 5.1 °C 9.1 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 20.9 °C 24.1 °C 31.6 °C
Annual rainfall 492 mm 844 mm 1,677 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 22 mm 31 mm 62 mm

It is found where winters bring light frost. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 210 research-grade observations of Verbena carolina 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.

Also published as 19 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.

  • Styleurodon carolinianus (L.) Raf.
  • Verbena biserrata Kunth
  • Verbena carolina f. hirsuta (M.Martens & Galeotti) Moldenke
  • Verbena carolina f. recta Loes.
  • Verbena carolina var. hirsuta (M.Martens & Galeotti) Moldenke
  • Verbena carolina var. polystachya Loes.
  • Verbena carolina var. recta Loes.
  • Verbena caroliniana L.
  • Verbena caroliniana f. polystachya (Kunth) Loes.
  • Verbena caroliniana f. recta Loes.
  • Verbena caroliniana var. polystachya (Kunth) Loes.
  • Verbena caroliniana var. recta Loes.
  • Verbena ehrenbergiana var. richardsonii Moldenke
  • Verbena hirsuta M.Martens & Galeotti
  • Verbena mollis M.Martens & Galeotti
  • Verbena pauciflora Walp.
  • Verbena paucifolia M.Martens & Galeotti
  • Verbena polystachya Kunth
  • Verbena veronicifolia Kunth

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. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. 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.