Summary
Begonia hispida, the piggyback begonia (a name only applied to individuals with leaflets), is a species of flowering plant in the family Begoniaceae, native to southeastern and southern Brazil. They are occasionally cultivated due to their "piggyback" leaflets which grow directly from veins in the main leaves. The piggyback mutation is also seen in Arabidopsis.
Quoted from Wikipedia, "Begonia hispida", CC BY-SA 4.0.
About the genus · Begonia
Begonia is a genus of perennial flowering plants in the family Begoniaceae. The genus contains more than 2,000 different plant species, distributed primarily across tropical and subtropical regions of Africa, Asia, and Central and South America, with Africa considered the center of origin. Some species are commonly grown indoors as ornamental houseplants in cooler climates, or cultivated outside in summertime for their bright colorful flowers, which have petals but no sepals.
Quoted from Wikipedia, "Begonia", CC BY-SA 4.0.
Cultivation
Grouped as a tropical foliage plant, listed under the genus Begonia in the archetype table, and Kew describes it as “subshrub”, “wet tropical”.
How this section is made
Each card states this species' habitat figures with their sources, and what two fixed rules read from them; nothing here says what the plant does, wants or tolerates. The rules · the terms.
Group. Listed under the genus Begonia in the archetype table, and Kew describes it as “subshrub”, “wet tropical”. A group is taken only where Kew's description of the species agrees with the table's listing. The table gives no figure and no prose; the cold floor is the habitat's alone.
Climate across the habitat
Natural habitat
Photographs
Photographs: Krzysztof Ziarnek, Kenraiz, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (2).
Related
Other Begonia 279 in the reference
Begonia acerifolia Maple-leaved begonia Photo: CC BY, Yuri SofronovNames & registers
Also known as Begonia hispida var. cucullifera; Wageneria hispida; Wageneria tomentosa. (GBIF Backbone)
The record
Every figure here is derived from public data by a stated rule and names its source; nothing about this species is written for its page by a person or by AI, apart from the marked, credited quotations. How →
Where this page came from built 2026-10-21
gbif.species answeredasked 2026-10-21gbif.synonyms answeredasked 2026-10-21gbif.vernacular answeredasked 2026-10-21names fetched 2026-10-21wcvp.distribution answeredas of 2026-06-04gbif.occurrences answeredas of 2026-10-21GBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.hbdw64, of 2026-10-21climate nothing to reportasked 2026-10-213 in-range records, none placed to within 10 kmwikidata answeredasked 2026-10-21IPNI and POWO linked by Kew's number for Begonia hispida Schott ex A.DC. (the item's: IPNI 315568-2, POWO 104856-1)wikipedia answeredasked 2026-10-21inat.taxon not askedinat.photos.wild not askedinat.photos.cultivated not askedgbif.media nothing to reportasked 2026-10-21commons answeredasked 2026-10-21openalex not askednot yet asked for this reference; a later fill takes the papers from OpenAlex's snapshotEvery source is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, refused, failed, not been asked, or answered twice where one answer is taken (“not taken: two items answered”), and, for a source asked when this page was built, when: the figures are as the source held them that day; a source read from a file (Kew's World Checklist, a GBIF download) says "as of" the file's day instead; a row carried from an earlier build of the page names that build instead. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 4 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.
