- Plants
- ›Vascular Plants
- ›flowering plants
- ›Dicots
- ›Gentians, Dogbanes, Madders, and Allies
- ›madder family
- ›Cinchonoideae
- ›Hamelieae
- ›Hamelia
Firebush
Hamelia patens
Hamelia patens is a large evergreen perennial shrub or small tree in the family Rubiaceae, that is native to the American subtropics and tropics. Its range extends from Florida in the southern United States to as far south as Argentina. Common names include firebush, hummingbird bush, scarlet bush, and redhead. In Belize, this plant's Mayan name is Ix Canaan and is also known as "Guardian of the Forest".
From the article Hamelia patens on Wikipedia (CC BY-SA), quoted section by section
At the table
Hummingbirds are attracted by its flowers and other birds feed on the fruit, both of which will also forage on small insects found in the vicinity, helping to keep down pests. These flowers are also fed on by butterflies, such as the statira sulphur (Aphrissa statira), which are attracted to red flowering plants. The fruits have a refreshing, acidic taste and are also edible by humans; in Mexico, they are made into a fermented drink.
Folk medicine. The plants are used in folk medicine for a range of ailments.
Wikipedia: “Uses”
Where it lives
Recorded sightings
—
geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
Drag the globe to turn it. Dots are where records exist, not a range map; darker means more records.
In the stacks
Searching the stacks…
Every page naming Hamelia patens in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
This page is assembled live from iNaturalist, GBIF, Wikipedia, the Source Library and the Internet Archive. It is not yet part of the hand-edited codex. iNaturalist taxon 126305.