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Phytolacca octandra; photograph James K. Douch, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SAJames K. Douch, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Phytolacca octandra L.

Phytolaccaceae · Mexico Central, Mexico Northeast +15

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

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GBIF's records not checked. GBIF'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. So this page has no points on its map, no map marker, no habitat climate, no cultivation sheet and no species of nearest climate; the range is Kew's. Not a statement that none exist. How.

Phytolacca octandra, photograph Mark Marathon, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia CommonsPhytolacca octandra, photograph Ewen Cameron, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia CommonsPhytolacca octandra, photograph Ewen Cameron, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia CommonsPhytolacca octandra, photograph Ewen Cameron, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia CommonsPhytolacca octandra, photograph Juan Carlos Fonseca Mata, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia CommonsPhytolacca octandra, photograph Juan Carlos Fonseca Mata, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons 12 photographs ›

Summary

Phytolacca octandra, also known as inkweed or red inkplant, is a herbaceous perennial plant in the pokeweed family Phytolaccaceae, originating from the Neotropical realm of the Americas.

Quoted from Wikipedia, "Phytolacca octandra", CC BY-SA 4.0.

About the genus · Phytolacca

Phytolacca is a genus of perennial plants native to North America, South America and East Asia. Some members of the genus are known as pokeweeds or similar names such as pokebush, pokeberry, pokeroot or poke sallet. Other names for species of Phytolacca include inkberry and ombú. More on Wikipedia ›

Quoted from Wikipedia, "Phytolacca", CC BY-SA 4.0.

Cultivation

Not checked: GBIF's records were not asked (why, under the name), and the habitat climate is read only from them, so no sheet is derived.

Climate across the habitat

Not checked. GBIF's records were not asked (why, under the name), and the habitat climate is read only from them, so none is derived here. This is not a statement that no climate exists.

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP.
Records not checked: GBIF's records were not asked, as said under the name.
NativeMexico Central, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Southwest, Mexico Southeast, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia, Galápagos, Peru, Brazil Northeast, Argentina Northwest, Paraguay · introduced: Kenya, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Cape Provinces, Lesotho, KwaZulu-Natal, Free State, Swaziland, Northern Provinces, Madagascar, Sri Lanka, Jawa, Malaya, Sumatera, Norfolk Is., New South Wales, Northern Territory, Queensland, South Australia, Victoria, Western Australia, New Zealand North, New Caledonia, Cook Is., Hawaii, Wisconsin, Arizona · 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“perennial or subshrub” · “seasonally dry tropical” · quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Evidence usedGBIF's records not checked, as said under the name: so there are no points on the map, no map marker and no climate across the range; the range is Kew's. Not a statement that no record exists.

Photographs

Phytolacca octandra, photograph 1did not loadPhytolacca octandra, photograph 2did not loadPhytolacca octandra, photograph 3did not loadPhytolacca octandra, photograph 4did not loadPhytolacca octandra, photograph 5did not loadPhytolacca octandra, photograph 6did not load

Photographs: Mark Marathon, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons; Ewen Cameron, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (3); Juan Carlos Fonseca Mata, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (2).

Similar habitat climate Not checked: GBIF's records were not asked (why, under the name), and the nearest habitat climates are read from the climate they give.

Other Phytolacca 12 in the reference

Phytolacca acinosa Phytolacca acinosa Indian pokeweed Photo: CC0, author not statedPhytolacca americana Phytolacca americana American pokeweed Photo: CC BY, Sandy WolkenbergPhytolacca bogotensis Phytolacca bogotensis Southern pokeweed Photo: CC BY-SA, Noemi GuerreroPhytolacca dioica Phytolacca dioica Belhambra Photo: CC BY-SA, Antoinette Eyssell KnoxPhytolacca heterotepala Phytolacca heterotepala Mexican pokeweed Photo: CC BY, Mary JantschPhytolacca icosandra Phytolacca icosandra Tropical pokeweed Photo: CC BY, Mark ValenPhytolacca polyandra Phytolacca polyandra Chinese Pokeweed Photo: CC BY, Mary E. Macaulay, P.Eng.Phytolacca rivinoides Phytolacca rivinoides Venezuelan pokeweed Photo: CC BY, Cen_BamperPhytolacca rugosa Phytolacca rugosa Phytolaccaceae Photo: CC BY, lazarusPhytolacca tetramera Phytolacca tetramera Phytolaccaceae Photo: CC0, author not statedPhytolacca thyrsiflora Phytolacca thyrsiflora Brazilian Pokeweed Photo: CC BY, Paulo MascarettiPhytolacca weberbaueri Phytolacca weberbaueri Phytolaccaceae Photo: CC BY, Dick Culbert from Gibsons, B.C., Canada

Names & registers

Also known as Phytolacca americana var. mexicana; Phytolacca octandra var. grandifolia. (WCVP, RBG Kew)

IPNIPOWOWikidataWFOWikipedia

The record

Family
Phytolaccaceae
Described by
L.
Native to
Mexico Central, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Gulf +14
Records
not checked · GBIF's records were not asked: the page has no GBIF key

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 Phytolacca octandra L. (plant_name_id 2562609), 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
GBIF occurrence records gbif.occurrences 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
Habitat climate climate 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, and the habitat climate is read only from them
Wikidata wikidata answeredasked 2026-10-22found by Kew's IPNI identifier 323293-2, POWO 323293-2
Wikipedia wikipedia answeredasked 2026-10-22
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.

Cultifolio

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