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Apocynaceae family

Purple Allamanda Allamanda blanchetii

Purple Allamanda is an introduced perennial shrub, found in Puerto Rico.

More about this plant

Allamanda blanchetii is a species of perennial flowering plant in the family Apocynaceae native to Brazil. Cultivated as an ornamental plant, it grows in full sun in USDA Zones 9b through 11 including central and south Florida, southernmost Texas, and coastal California. This plant's purple, bell-shaped blooms are about 3" across. It is also called red bell. From the stem, fiber can be extracted which is very strong and silky white after chemical treatment. Wikipedia →

Growing & care

USDA PLANTS · TRY

Size & form

Sources · Size & form

USDA PLANTS — Lifespan

TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0) — Foliage

McKenzie et al. 2025 — community-science image analysis (MIT) — Flower colour

Lifespan: Perennial
Foliage: Broadleaf
Flower colour: Pink AI AI image-analysis of community-science photos (~87% expert agreement) — not a botanical record

In the garden

Shrub layer — Sits in the shrub of a layered food forest or polyculture.Open guide →

derived roles

AI = read by an AI vision model · DERIVED = a computed estimate, not a direct measurement. The “How we know this” section below details each.

Species characteristics from USDA PLANTS (public domain) + TRY (CC BY) — general guidance, not a guarantee for your exact site. Deer "browsing" is documented palatability, not a deer-proof claim.

Wildlife & pollinators

How pollinator value is scored →

❧ Caterpillar hosts Documented caterpillar host

Recorded feeding on Allamanda in North America, including:

Erinnyis alope · Alope Sphinx

Named species (a documented Nearctic sample, not exhaustive) from NHM HOSTS (CC0).

✦ Bees 5 bee visitors

5 native & managed bee species are documented visiting Purple Allamanda :

Eulaema nigrita

Xylocopa frontalis · carpenter bee

Xylocopa grisescens · carpenter bee

Apis mellifera · Honey Bee Xylocopa carbonaria · carpenter bee

Visitor records (observations, not exhaustive) from Noori et al. 2026 (CC BY 4.0) · GloBI →

Wildlife & visitors 4 nectaring

Open records of who else uses Purple Allamanda — a generalist food-web signal, kept separate from the keystone Ecological Value.

4 adult butterfly & moth species are recorded nectaring at its flowers:

Phoebis philea · Orange-Barred Sulphur

Anteos clorinde · White Angled-Sulphur

Phoebis sennae · Cloudless Sulphur

Carystus hylaspes

Interaction records (observations, not exhaustive) from GloBI → (CC0). Counts are distinct species; names are the most-recorded. Common names from Wikidata (CC0).

Species thumbnails re-hosted from iNaturalist — Creative Commons, credited per image (hover for credit). Click any species to see it on iNaturalist. Not exhaustive; many taxa have no openly-licensed photo yet.

How we know this (1) Methods & honest limits

Flower colour Derived

McKenzie et al. assigned each species a flower colour with a GPT-4V vision model over iNaturalist photos. We use the confident tier plus a separately-labelled lower-confidence top-up (mostly inconspicuous green/brown flowers), and render it as a small tint — never as an asserted fact, and kept out of the written synopsis.

Honest limits: AI image inference (~87% expert agreement on the confident tier); a decorative, confidence-tiered indicator, not a measured trait.

McKenzie, P., Berardi, A.E., Hopkins, R. (2025). flower_color_phenology (MIT).

Derived values are computed from open data by a published method — labelled, cited, and never shown as a direct observation. Full methodology →

Sources for this entry (19) Open & cited

[01] Scientific name & family — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)

[02] Growth habit & duration — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)

[03] Native status & distribution — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)

[04] Common name — USDA PLANTS (via GBIF)

[05] Invasive / introduced status — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — native status

[06] Photos — iNaturalist — CC, credited per image

[07] Description — Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)

[08] Ecological value — GloBI

[09] Foliage — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)

[10] Functional traits — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)

[11] Wildlife & visitors — GloBI — Global Biotic Interactions (CC0)

[12] Flower colour — McKenzie et al. 2025 — community-science image analysis (MIT)

[13] Mycorrhiza — FungalRoot v2.0 · Meng et al. 2024 (Dryad, CC0)

[14] Chromosomes — ChromoDB — IAPT/IOPB chromosome data series (Zenodo, CC BY 4.0)

[15] Human uses — Dr. Duke's Phytochemical & Ethnobotanical Databases (USDA, CC0)

[16] Bee visitors — Noori et al. 2026 (Zenodo, CC BY 4.0) · via GloBI

[17] Flower-visitor value (derived) — Noori et al. 2026 (CC BY 4.0) · GloBI

[18] Caterpillar species — NHM HOSTS (CC0)

[19] County range — GBIF Open Data — open-licensed occurrences (CC0/CC-BY) → county

Spot an error or have a better photo? Every field links to its source, and the whole dataset is open.

Cite this page Open data, please attribute

PlantKey’s data is open under CC BY-SA 4.0 — free to reuse and adapt, with attribution and the same licence. Photos keep their own per-image licence + credit (see Sources above).

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Ecological value open data

2 / 5 Keystone

Keystone (host) value — caterpillar, specialist-bee & monarch hosting. A low number means “not a keystone host,” not “low value”: generalist flower-visitor value is shown separately below and in Bees & wildlife.

Caterpillar host 2

Flower-visitor value derived 3

Recorded flower-visitor breadth — observations, not a nectar measurement. open data

⚠ non-native — reduced keystone value

Deep dive

Caterpillar host · 2/5 — native butterfly & moth caterpillars that feed on this genus — the base of the food web (more caterpillars → more songbirds). Genus-level keystone count from Warren II 2026 (CC0; Tallamy host-use records), gap-filled by our GloBI derivation.

Counts are genus-level and banded 0–5. Full rubric →

Host / keystone value from open interaction data. How this is scored →

📍 In your area live

Introduced to the U.S.

Recorded in 1 state.

Open occurrence records place it in 4 counties across 2 states · GBIF (CC0/CC-BY)

Introduced — Puerto Rico

Recorded in 1 states/territories

Conservation

Invasive? Introduced

Toxicity & pet safety

Check the ASPCA pet database →

Educational, not veterinary advice. If you suspect your pet ate this plant, contact a vet or pet poison-control line.

Documented human uses Dr. Duke's

2 use-records

Historically recorded for

CatharticEmetic

A historical record of how this plant has been used — not medical or dietary advice, and not a claim that it is effective or safe. Many plants are toxic; never ingest or treat with a wild plant without expert guidance and a confirmed identification. Dr. Duke's →

Functional traits TRY · Dryad

Leaf nitrogen average

16.4 mg/g

leaf nitrogen — a rough guide to compost/mulch value

Mycorrhiza obligate

Arbuscular (AM)

partners with arbuscular fungi — the commonest symbiosis; helps reach phosphorus & water, aiding drought resilience

Chromosomes cytotype variation

2n = 18, 36

several cytotypes on record (2n = 18, 36) — a polyploid complex; ploidy varies between populations, which often tracks with adaptability and spread

Deep dive — what these mean

Leaf nitrogen 16.4 mg/g — measured leaf N. Higher = richer prunings for compost/mulch (a measured stand-in for "dynamic accumulator" claims).

Mycorrhiza AM — the root–fungus partnership it forms (AM = most plants; ECM = most forest trees; ERM = heaths; NM = none). Trades sugars for water & nutrients via shared soil networks.

Measured traits from TRY + Werner et al. (N-fix), Fan et al. (roots) & FungalRoot — general guidance, not species-specific prescriptions.

More modules coming

Purple Allamanda Allamanda blanchetii

Growing & care

Wildlife & pollinators

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