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Araceae family

Dumbcane Dieffenbachia seguine

Native

Dumbcane is a perennial wildflower native to Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. It grows to 3 ft.

More about this plant

Dieffenbachia seguine, widely known as dumbcane, as well as leopard lily or tuftroot, is a species of Dieffenbachia, a flowering aroid plant of the family Araceae. It is native to the neotropical realm of the Americas, from extreme southern Mexico and Belize and much of Central America, as well as the northern half of South America. It is found on many Caribbean islands and territories, including Cuba, Grand Bahama, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Hispaniola, Îles des Saintes, Jamaica, Martinique, Puerto Rico, Saba, Saint Kitts and Trinidad and Tobago. D. seguine is also found on the Galápagos islands of Santa Cruz and San Cristóbal, where it was likely introduced by humans. Wikipedia →

Growing & care

USDA PLANTS · TRY

Conditions

Sources · Conditions

Cold hardiness (derived) — Hardiness

Hardiness: ≥ zone 11 derived from its U.S. range

Size & form

Sources · Size & form

TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0) — Height · Foliage

USDA PLANTS — Lifespan

Height: 3 ft
Lifespan: Perennial
Foliage: Evergreen broadleaf

In the garden

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

derived roles

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.

How we know this (2) Methods & honest limits

Photosynthesis Direct fact

A recorded categorical fact: each species is tagged C3 (standard), C4 (heat/water-efficient) or CAM (succulent, night-time CO₂ uptake) — or a facultative combination. We only show a trait card for the noteworthy C4/CAM cases; C3 is the unremarkable majority, kept in the data but not surfaced as a card.

Kattge, J. et al. TRY plant trait database — Categorical Traits Dataset (2012).

Climate niche (heat tolerance & native rainfall) Derived

We take the plant’s U.S. county range and look up each county’s long-term climate, then summarise: native rainfall = the median annual rainfall across its counties; heat tolerance = the warm end (90th percentile) of average temperature across its range (mirroring how our cold-hardiness floor uses an extreme). Counties + medians blunt the roadside/observer bias that makes point-level climate unreliable. Needs at least five placeable counties.

Honest limits: A realized, sampling-biased niche (where it has been recorded, not its physiological optimum), and county climate is coarse — large Western counties span deserts and mountains. Derived guide, never a measured fact.

Realized-niche / climate-envelope approach (Pearson & Dawson 2003; Soberón 2007). Climate: NOAA NCEI nClimDiv county normals (1991–2020).

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 (18) 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 — US-RIIS v2.0 (USGS)

[06] Wetland indicator — USACE National Wetland Plant List (2022)

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

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

[09] Ecological value — GloBI

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

[11] Height — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)

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

[13] Photosynthetic pathway — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)

[14] Climate niche — Derived — realized climate niche from U.S. county occurrences (GBIF) × NOAA NCEI county climate normals 1991–2020 (public domain)

[15] Cold hardiness (derived) — Derived from U.S. range × USDA PHZM zones

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

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

[18] 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

1 / 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.

Caterpillar host 1

Deep dive

Caterpillar host · 1/5 — 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

Native to the U.S.

Recorded in 3 states.

Open occurrence records place it in 6 counties across 3 states · GBIF (CC0/CC-BY)

Native — Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands

Introduced — Conterminous United States and Pacific Basin (excl. Hawaii)

Recorded in 3 states/territories

Conservation

Invasive? Native

Wetland indicator FACU

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

Medicinal use 34 use-records

Historically recorded for

ContraceptiveArrow PoisonPoisonAnginaAphrodisiacArrowCastrationCausticCornCyanogeneticDropsyDysmenorrheaEdemaFrigidityGargleHomeopathy +11 more

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

Seed mass large

179 mg

large seed — easy to hand-collect & direct-sow; vigorous seedlings

Heat tolerance subtropical

Thrives in heat

ranges into subtropical heat — very heat-tolerant

Native rainfall moist

Moist (~50 in/yr)

grows where rainfall is generous

Chromosomes recorded

2n = 34

somatic chromosome number

Deep dive — what these mean

Seed mass 179 mg — average weight of one seed. Bigger seeds are easier to hand-collect & direct-sow; dust-fine seeds need surface-sowing.

Photosynthesis — the standard “C3” pathway most plants use, most active in cooler, moister, moderate-light conditions. (pathway C3)

Climate niche — the rainfall & warmth of where it actually grows in the U.S., from its county range. A realized niche (where it’s recorded, not its ideal), so read it as a guide. ~50 in/yr rainfall · warm-end avg 74°F across 6 counties (GBIF × NOAA 1991–2020 normals)

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

More modules coming

Dumbcane Dieffenbachia seguine

Growing & care

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