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Strict Genus: Ruellia

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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Synonyms: The same field recognizes many outdated or alternative botanical names and links them to their currently accepted taxa.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 Ruellia

View Botanical Profile & Insights

Shrubs make up the vast majority of the genus Ruellia, a member of the Acanthaceae family, which comprises 415 taxa. It is widespread across South America, and is also natively found in North America, Africa, Temperate Asia, Tropical Asia, Australasia, and the Pacific. It is primarily associated with wet tropical and seasonally dry tropical regions.

Data Profile

Taxonomic Scale: 415 taxa (380 base species, 35 variants).
Centers of Diversity: South America (241), North America (89), Africa (80)
Primary Climates: Wet Tropical (236), Seasonally Dry Tropical (114), Desert Or Dry Shrubland (33)
Dominant Forms: Shrubs (123), Herbaceous Perennials (22), Trees (4), Annuals & Biennials (3)

415 taxa found

Showing 30 (page 1 of 14)

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Ruellia acutangula

Family: Acanthaceae

Ruellia adenocalyx

Family: Acanthaceae

Ruellia adenostachya

Family: Acanthaceae

Ruellia affinis

Family: Acanthaceae

Ruellia albopurpurea

Family: Acanthaceae

Ruellia albopurpurea var. albopurpurea

Family: Acanthaceae

Ruellia albopurpurea var. sulfureoviolacea

Family: Acanthaceae

Ruellia albopurpurea var. tulearensis

Family: Acanthaceae

Ruellia alboviolacea

Family: Acanthaceae

Ruellia altoparadisiensis

— Wild Petunia Family: Acanthaceae

Ruellia amabilis

Family: Acanthaceae

Tropical Shrubs

Ruellia amapensis

Family: Acanthaceae

Ruellia amarilla

Family: Acanthaceae

Ruellia amoena

Family: Acanthaceae

Ruellia amplexicaulis

Family: Acanthaceae

Ruellia anamariae

Family: Acanthaceae

Ruellia anaticollis

Family: Acanthaceae

Ruellia angolensis

— Wild Petunia Family: Acanthaceae

Ruellia angustiflora

Family: Acanthaceae

Subtropical Air Plants

Ruellia angustifolia

Family: Acanthaceae

Ruellia angustior

Family: Acanthaceae

Ruellia ansericollis

Family: Acanthaceae

Ruellia anthracina

Family: Acanthaceae

Ruellia antiquorum

Family: Acanthaceae

Ruellia aquatica

Family: Acanthaceae

Ruellia asperula

Family: Acanthaceae

Ruellia aurantiaca

Family: Acanthaceae

Tropical Shrubs

Ruellia bahiensis

Family: Acanthaceae

Tropical Shrubs

Ruellia baikiei

Family: Acanthaceae

Ruellia baurii

Family: Acanthaceae

Subtropical Shrubs

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