Vernonia arborescens(L.) Sw.

Christmas BlossomFleabane

WFO wfo-0000003106 Accepted WFO 2026-06 5 photographs CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–e · 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.

Vernonia arborescens, photographed by Lena Struwe
fig. a Lena Struwe, CC BY-SA 4.0 / 2017-03-06 / obs. 7470468
Vernonia arborescens, photographed by Lena Struwe
fig. b Lena Struwe, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 1692187
Vernonia arborescens, photographed by Lena Struwe
fig. c Lena Struwe, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 7470453
Vernonia arborescens, photographed by Lena Struwe
fig. d Lena Struwe, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 1692188
Vernonia arborescens, photographed by Lena Struwe
fig. e Lena Struwe, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 7470460

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 13 botanical countries

Regions where Vernonia arborescens is native: Mexico Central, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Southeast, Mexico Southwest, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panamá, Peru, Venezuelan Antilles, Windward Is. Mexico CentralMexico GulfMexico NortheastMexico SoutheastMexico SouthwestCosta RicaGuatemalaHondurasNicaraguaPanamáPeru Venezuelan AntillesWindward Is.
Native distribution of Vernonia arborescens, 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
Costa Rica COS SOUTHERN AMERICA
Guatemala GUA
Honduras HON
Nicaragua NIC
Panamá PAN
Peru PER
Venezuelan Antilles VNA
Windward Is. WIN
Mexico Central MXC NORTHERN AMERICA
Mexico Gulf MXG
Mexico Northeast MXE
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.

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.

  • Cacalia arborescens Kuntze
  • Cacalia arborescens var. arborescens
  • Cacalia arborescens var. divaricata Kuntze
  • Cacalia arborescens var. lessingiana Kuntze
  • Conyza arborescens L.
  • Eupatorium secundiflorum Bertero ex DC.
  • Lepidaploa arborescens (L.) H.Rob.
  • Osmia conyzoides Sch.Bip.
  • Vernonia albicoma Gleason
  • Vernonia amaranthina Gleason
  • Vernonia divaricata Sw.
  • Vernonia divaricata Less.
  • Vernonia icosantha DC.
  • Vernonia intonsa Gleason
  • Vernonia nitens Steud.
  • Vernonia parvuliceps Ekman
  • Vernonia permollis Gleason
  • Vernonia tomentosa Sinning
  • Vernonia ventosa Gleason

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.