Begonia hirtella
A small, hairy, weedy begonia from tropical America that seeds itself freely onto damp banks, road cuttings, walls and the edges of secondary forest. It has become naturalised through much of the tropics, including Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Sri Lanka and Taiwan. It is easy and short-lived: give it warmth, bright shade and constant moisture, and let it reseed.
Where it grows wild
Herbarium and observation notes from its native range describe clay banks in lowland forest understory, soil and rock cuttings along roads with weedy vegetation, slopes near waterways, secondary forest, humid tropical forest and open places. In Brazil it is noted as spontaneous, creeping or prostrate, and growing among bricks beside buildings. It is a pioneer of damp, disturbed, partly shaded ground.
Native records range from near sea level to about 1,350 m in Colombia and Peru (medians around 500–650 m), with a few Bolivian records at 2,100 m.
🔒 Growing it like that
The wild conditions above, turned into targets for a shelf, a tent or a greenhouse. The full profile has:
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Profiles are drafts built from measured range and climate and from published sources; each section carries its own confidence in the app. Photo from Wikimedia Commons, used under its CC BY 3.0 licence, unmodified.