Cuphea hyssopifolia
species of plant
Cuphea hyssopifolia, the false heather, Mexican heather, Hawaiian heather or elfin herb, is a small evergreen shrub native to Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras.
Description
It grows to about 60 cm (24 in) high by 90 cm (35 in) wide and has purple, lavender or white coloured flowers and fine foliage. Its leaves are small, narrow and dark green. The fruit is a capsule that contains small globose seeds.
The Latin specific epithet hyssopifolia (which also occurs in several other plant names, including that of Bassia hyssopifolia) means "hyssop-leafed", referring to the fine, narrow leaves of that plant.
Habitat
It is present in hot, semi-warm and temperate climates between 500 and 2,240 meters (1,640 and 7,350 ft) above sea level. An ornamental plant grown in orchards and gardens, it grows on the banks of streams, associated with disturbed vegetation of tropical deciduous and sub-deciduous forests, as well as mountain mesophilic forest.
The species is naturalised in Hawaii, and regarded as a serious weed there.
Cultivation
In cultivation, the species adapts to a range of soils in a sunny or partially shaded situation with good drainage. It can be cultivated outdoors in USDA hardiness zones 8B-11, but does not tolerate freezing temperatures.
“Cuphea hyssopifolia” enters the record as species of plant. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Cuphea, hyssopifolia and species can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Cuphea hyssopifolia” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Cuphea, hyssopifolia and species provides the most credible route into that argument.
The date and method of observation matter as much as the stated conclusion, especially where classification or consensus has changed. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5194465. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Cuphea hyssopifolia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.