Example ⟳ +
An example collection, so you can see what this page does. Nothing added here is kept: leaving deletes it.
Melhania ebenus; photograph Jeffdelonge, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SAJeffdelonge, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Melhania ebenus (Cronk) Dorr

Malvaceae · St.Helena

English names not checked: Wikidata's common names were not read for this page.

No habitat climate
Add one to my plants
Sow seed
Melhania ebenus, photograph Michael Wolf (Webseite), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia CommonsMelhania ebenus, photograph Zymurgy, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia CommonsMelhania ebenus, photograph Kevstan, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia CommonsMelhania ebenus, photograph Daderot, CC0, via Wikimedia CommonsMelhania ebenus, photograph Kevstan, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia CommonsMelhania ebenus, photograph David Stanley from Nanaimo, Canada, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons 7 photographs ›

Summary

Melhania ebenus, the dwarf ebony or Saint Helena ebony, is a species of flowering plant that is endemic to the island of Saint Helena in the southern Atlantic Ocean. It is a shrub or tree with staminodes that are dark maroon or "black". It is not related to the ebony of commerce (Diospyros spp.), but is instead a member of the mallow family, Malvaceae. Saint Helena ebony is now critically endangered in the wild, being reduced to two wild individuals on a cliff, but old roots are sometimes found washed out of eroding slopes (relicts of its former abundance). More on Wikipedia ›

Quoted from Wikipedia, "Melhania ebenus", CC BY-SA 4.0.

Cultivation

Nothing derived: no habitat climate for this species.

Climate across the habitat

No habitat climate can be derived: 2 in-range records, none placed to within 10 km. 2 of the 2 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km, or to no stated accuracy and fewer than three decimals or by something other than a person's observation, and cannot place a climate cell, though they count for the map and its marker.

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.

This species has no GBIF key of its own. Its records are GBIF's under the key of the name Kew's World Checklist holds as this plant: 3671552 (Trochetiopsis ebenus Cronk, 3 records). No name was matched to GBIF; the keys are read from Kew's synonymy. How.

NativeSt.Helena · regions are the level-3 units of the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions, as Kew's World Checklist records ranges, some under historical names such as Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia (how).
Kew's description“shrub or tree” · “seasonally dry tropical” · quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Evidence usedThe map marker rests on all 2 georeferenced records inside the native range, all openly licensed and shown on the map. Under a dozen records behind the map. No climate across the range is derived for this species. 2 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km, or with no stated accuracy (admitted only as a person's observation to three decimals), and stay on the map but off the climate.
Other GBIF keysRecords also from GBIF's key 3671552 (Trochetiopsis ebenus Cronk): Kew's file holds it as Trochetiopsis ebenus Cronk (synonym under Melhania ebenus (Cronk) Dorr); 3 records, from GBIF's download.

Photographs

Melhania ebenus, photograph 1did not loadMelhania ebenus, photograph 2did not loadMelhania ebenus, photograph 3did not loadMelhania ebenus, photograph 4did not loadMelhania ebenus, photograph 5did not loadMelhania ebenus, photograph 6did not load

Photographs: Michael Wolf (Webseite), CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Zymurgy, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Kevstan, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (2); Daderot, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons; David Stanley from Nanaimo, Canada, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Other Melhania 2 in the reference

Melhania erythroxylon Melhania erythroxylon Malvaceae Photo: CC0, davidroy Melhania melanoxylon Dwarf ebony

Names & registers

Also known as Trochetiopsis ebenus. (WCVP, RBG Kew)

IPNIPOWOWikidataWFOWikipedia

The record

Family
Malvaceae
Described by
(Cronk) Dorr
Native to
St.Helena
Wild records
2 in range · 2 open

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 2026-10-22
Kew's names (WCVP) kew.names answeredas of 2026-06-04Kew's entry Melhania ebenus (Cronk) Dorr (plant_name_id 3275244), read from Kew's names file
GBIF species record gbif.species not askedGBIF's backbone holds no one accepted species of this name, and a name it holds only as another species' synonym is not taken for this one, so GBIF's records were not asked
GBIF synonyms gbif.synonyms not askedGBIF's backbone holds no one accepted species of this name, and a name it holds only as another species' synonym is not taken for this one, so GBIF's records were not asked
GBIF common names gbif.vernacular not askedGBIF's backbone holds no one accepted species of this name, and a name it holds only as another species' synonym is not taken for this one, so GBIF's records were not asked
WCVP native range wcvp.distribution answeredas of 2026-06-04
GBIF occurrence records gbif.occurrences answeredas of 2026-10-21this species has no GBIF key of its own; its records are read under GBIF's keys for the names Kew's file holds as this plant, never by a name matched; GBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.hbdw64, of 2026-10-21; 3 records of GBIF's key 3671552, Trochetiopsis ebenus Cronk (Kew's file holds it as Trochetiopsis ebenus Cronk (synonym under Melhania ebenus (Cronk) Dorr)): the GBIF download
Habitat climate climate nothing to reportasked 2026-10-222 in-range records, none placed to within 10 km
Wikidata wikidata answeredasked 2026-10-22found by Kew's IPNI identifier 77217542-1, POWO 77217542-1
Wikipedia wikipedia answeredasked 2026-10-22
iNaturalist taxon inat.taxon not asked
iNaturalist photographs, wild inat.photos.wild not asked
iNaturalist photographs, cultivated inat.photos.cultivated not asked
GBIF media gbif.media not askedGBIF's backbone holds no one accepted species of this name, and a name it holds only as another species' synonym is not taken for this one, so GBIF's records were not asked
Wikimedia Commons commons answeredasked 2026-10-22
OpenAlex papers openalex not askednot yet asked for this reference; a later fill takes the papers from OpenAlex's snapshot

Every 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 2 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.

Cultifolio

Opening your plants…