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Strict Genus: Polystachya

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Search by botanical or common name, genus, or family. SilvaGrid also recognizes many botanical synonyms and standard hybrid notation.

Name search: Use Botanical or Common Name to search a full botanical name such as Acer palmatum, a genus such as Acer, or a common name such as maple.
Synonyms: The same field recognizes many outdated or alternative botanical names and links them to their currently accepted taxa.
Hybrids and graft chimaeras: In the same field, you can type a standard 'x' in place of the botanical hybrid symbol (×). Use '+' when searching for graft chimaeras.
Family search: Use Botanical Family to explore taxa within a family such as Rosaceae.

1. Climate

About climate mapping

To make searching practical, SilvaGrid groups the bioclimatic zones from the World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP) into five primary macro-climates:

Tropical: Equatorial and tropical zones defined by consistent year-round warmth. This encompasses the wet tropics, seasonally dry tropics, and cooler high-altitude montane tropics.
Subtropical: Warm transition zones between tropical and temperate regions, typically characterized by mild, largely frost-free winters. (Note: WCVP groups dry-summer Mediterranean climates within this broader biome).
Temperate: Mid-latitude climates defined by distinct seasonal shifts, including a true winter season where regular frosts and plant dormancy are expected.
Arid: Moisture-deficient climates—including true deserts and dry shrublands—where evaporation exceeds precipitation, requiring severe drought adaptations.
Cold: High-latitude subarctic or high-altitude subalpine climates defined by severe winters, prolonged freezing, and highly restricted growing seasons.

These categories describe a species' primary native environment and serve as a broad baseline for cultivation. While many plants can be successfully grown across multiple macroclimates—for example, some species mapped to the Tropical macroclimate can also be grown in temperate climates—others may have much narrower climatic requirements within their mapped macroclimate. Local factors such as frost hardiness, summer heat, rainfall and soil conditions should always be considered before planting.

2. Plant Types

About plant types

SilvaGrid Plant Types are practical horticultural and botanical groupings derived from WCVP life-form descriptions, taxonomy, or a combination of the two. Some correspond closely to established botanical groups, while others bring together plants with similar growth forms for practical discovery.

Trees: Woody plants with persistent above-ground stems, generally forming an elevated crown or canopy. Large herbaceous tree-like plants are excluded.
Shrubs: Woody or partly woody plants with a shrub or subshrub growth form, typically branching low rather than forming a single main trunk.
Climbers & Vines: Plants with a climbing growth habit, including herbaceous climbers and woody lianas that use other vegetation or structures for support.
Conifers: Gymnosperms from the major conifer families, including pines, cypresses, podocarps and their relatives, ranging from low shrubs to large trees.
Palms & Cycads: True palms from the Arecaceae family together with cycads. The two are not close botanical relatives, but are grouped here as a practical horticultural and landscape category.
Ferns: Vascular, spore-producing plants within the fern group, ranging from small ground-layer and epiphytic forms to large tree ferns.
Grasses, Sedges & Rushes: A practical group combining true grasses, sedges, rushes and restios. Bamboos are shown separately because of their distinctive growth form.
Bamboos: Members of the grass family, shown separately from other grasses because of their distinctive growth forms and horticultural use.
Herbaceous Perennials: Non-woody, multi-year plants, including evergreen tropical perennials and large herbaceous forms. Bulbs and other geophytes are shown separately.
Annuals & Biennials: Short-lived plants that complete their life cycle over one or two growing seasons.
Bulbs & Geophytes: Plants with underground storage organs such as bulbs, corms, tubers or rhizomes, allowing them to persist through seasonal dormancy.
Cacti & Succulents: Cacti and other succulent plants with fleshy or thickened tissues associated with water storage, spanning many unrelated botanical groups.
Aquatic & Pond Plants: Plants adapted to living in water or water-saturated soils, including submerged, floating and emergent forms.
Air Plants & Epiphytes: Epiphytic and lithophytic plants that grow on trees or rocks, including many plants commonly described as air plants.

3. Native range (WGSRPD)

Continent

Region

Botanical country

About WGSRPD mapping

SilvaGrid uses the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) to organise native plant distributions. WGSRPD is an international botanical standard maintained by Biodiversity Information Standards (TDWG) and is also used by the World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP).

Botanical geography: SilvaGrid uses WGSRPD continents, regions and "botanical countries". These provide consistent units for recording plant distributions, but they do not always correspond exactly to modern political countries.
Consistent distribution data: Using the same geographic framework as WCVP allows SilvaGrid to preserve and compare native-range information consistently across the global plant dataset.

WGSRPD is a system for recording plant distributions rather than a climate, habitat or site-suitability classification.

Genus Polystachya

View Botanical Profile & Insights

Native to North America, South America, Africa, Temperate Asia, and Tropical Asia, the genus Polystachya, a member of the Orchidaceae family, is a large group comprising 277 taxa. Members of this group are most often linked to wet tropical and seasonally dry tropical environments. It is composed entirely of herbaceous perennials.

Data Profile

Taxonomic Scale: 277 taxa (247 base species, 30 variants).
Centers of Diversity: Africa (259), South America (16), North America (8)
Primary Climates: Wet Tropical (212), Seasonally Dry Tropical (59), Subtropical (4)
Dominant Forms: Herbaceous Perennials (277)

277 taxa found

Showing 30 (page 1 of 10)

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Polystachya aconitiflora

Family: Orchidaceae

Tropical Bulbs Air Plants

Polystachya acridolens

Family: Orchidaceae

Tropical Bulbs Air Plants

Polystachya acuminata

Family: Orchidaceae

Tropical Bulbs Air Plants

Polystachya adansoniae

Family: Orchidaceae

Tropical Bulbs Air Plants

Polystachya aethiopica

Family: Orchidaceae

Tropical Herbaceous Perennials Air Plants

Polystachya affinis

Family: Orchidaceae

Tropical Bulbs Air Plants

Polystachya albescens

Family: Orchidaceae

Tropical Herbaceous Perennials Air Plants

Polystachya albescens subsp. albescens

Family: Orchidaceae

Tropical Herbaceous Perennials Air Plants

Polystachya albescens subsp. angustifolia

Family: Orchidaceae

Tropical Herbaceous Perennials Air Plants

Polystachya albescens subsp. imbricata

Family: Orchidaceae

Tropical Herbaceous Perennials Air Plants

Polystachya albescens subsp. kraenzlinii

Family: Orchidaceae

Tropical Herbaceous Perennials Air Plants

Polystachya albescens subsp. manengouba

Family: Orchidaceae

Tropical Herbaceous Perennials Air Plants

Polystachya albescens subsp. musozensis

Family: Orchidaceae

Tropical Herbaceous Perennials Air Plants

Polystachya albescens subsp. polyphylla

Family: Orchidaceae

Tropical Herbaceous Perennials Air Plants

Polystachya albescens subsp. principensis

Family: Orchidaceae

Tropical Herbaceous Perennials Air Plants

Polystachya alicjae

Family: Orchidaceae

Tropical Bulbs Air Plants

Polystachya alpina

Family: Orchidaceae

Tropical Bulbs Air Plants

Polystachya anastacialynae

Family: Orchidaceae

Tropical Bulbs Air Plants

Polystachya anceps

Family: Orchidaceae

Tropical Herbaceous Perennials Air Plants

Polystachya angularis

Family: Orchidaceae

Tropical Herbaceous Perennials Air Plants

Polystachya anthoceros

Family: Orchidaceae

Tropical Bulbs Air Plants

Polystachya armeniaca

Family: Orchidaceae

Tropical Herbaceous Perennials Air Plants

Polystachya asper

Family: Orchidaceae

Tropical Bulbs Air Plants

Polystachya aurantiaca

Family: Orchidaceae

Tropical Bulbs Air Plants

Polystachya bamendae

Family: Orchidaceae

Tropical Bulbs Air Plants

Polystachya bancoensis

Family: Orchidaceae

Tropical Bulbs Air Plants

Polystachya batkoi

Family: Orchidaceae

Tropical Bulbs Air Plants

Polystachya bella

Family: Orchidaceae

Tropical Bulbs Air Plants

Polystachya bennettiana

Family: Orchidaceae

Tropical Herbaceous Perennials Air Plants

Polystachya bequaertii

Family: Orchidaceae

Tropical Herbaceous Perennials Air Plants

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