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Euphorbiaceae family

Coralbush Jatropha multifida

Coralbush is an introduced perennial tree, found in the lower 48 states, the Pacific Basin, and Puerto Rico. It grows to 7 ft.

More about this plant

Jatropha multifida, called coral plant, coralbush, and physic nut, is a species of Jatropha native to Mexico and the Caribbean. A garden plant, it has been introduced to Florida, and to many places in South America, Africa, the Indian subcontinent, China and Southeast Asia. Mildly toxic, consumption causes gastrointestinal distress. Wikipedia →

⚠ Invasive here — plant a native instead USDA + GBIF

Coralbush is flagged invasive in the U.S. These natives fill a similar niche — same growth habit, bloom season, height, and region — so you keep the look and feed local wildlife instead of spreading a problem.

American Black Elderberry (subsp. canadensis)
Native
American Black Elderberry (subsp. canadensis)
Sambucus nigra subsp. canadensis
●●●○○
Southern Cattail
Native
Southern Cattail
Typha domingensis
●●○○○
Caper
Native
Caper
Capparis baducca
●●●●○
Upland Cotton
Native
Upland Cotton
Gossypium hirsutum
●●●○○
Matched on growth habit · bloom months · mature height · shared U.S. range (USDA + GBIF) — a starting point, not a prescription.

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
7 ft
Lifespan
Perennial
Foliage
Broadleaf
In the garden
Shrub layer — Sits in the shrub 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.

Wildlife & pollinators

How pollinator value is scored →
❧ Caterpillar hosts Documented caterpillar host
Named species (a documented Nearctic sample, not exhaustive) from NHM HOSTS (CC0).
Wildlife & visitors 4 nectaring

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

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
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 (17) 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)
[07] Description — Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
[08] Ecological value — GloBI
[11] Climate niche — Derived — realized climate niche from U.S. county occurrences (GBIF) × NOAA NCEI county climate normals 1991–2020 (public domain)
[12] Cold hardiness (derived) — Derived from U.S. range × USDA PHZM zones
[13] Wildlife & visitors — GloBI — Global Biotic Interactions (CC0)
[16] Caterpillar species — NHM HOSTS (CC0)
[17] 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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