Albizia chinensis(Osbeck) Merr.

Chinese albizia

WFO wfo-0000182103 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 3 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 3 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.

Albizia chinensis, photographed by Dinesh Valke
fig. a Dinesh Valke, CC BY-SA 4.0 / 2021-09-25 / obs. 160286996

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
The New York Botanical Garden
Accession
01004668
Filed as
Albizia chinensis (Osbeck) Merr.
Det. by
R. C. Barneby; J. W. Grimes 1991-01-01
Collected
T. B. McClelland 1929-06
Origin
PR
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 25 botanical countries

Regions where Albizia chinensis is native: China South-Central, China Southeast, Hainan, Tibet, Andaman Is., Assam, Bangladesh, Borneo, Cambodia, East Himalaya, India, Jawa, Laos, Lesser Sunda Is., Myanmar, Nepal, New Guinea, Nicobar Is., Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Sumatera, Thailand, Vietnam, West Himalaya China South-CentralChina SoutheastHainanTibetAssamBangladeshBorneoCambodiaEast HimalayaIndiaJawaLaosLesser Sunda Is.MyanmarNepalNew GuineaPakistanPhilippinesSri LankaSumateraThailandVietnamWest Himalaya Andaman Is.Nicobar Is.
Native distribution of Albizia chinensis, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Andaman Is. AND ASIA-TROPICAL
Assam ASS
Bangladesh BAN
Borneo BOR
Cambodia CBD
East Himalaya EHM
India IND
Jawa JAW
Laos LAO
Lesser Sunda Is. LSI
Myanmar MYA
Nepal NEP
New Guinea NWG
Nicobar Is. NCB
Pakistan PAK
Philippines PHI
Sri Lanka SRL
Sumatera SUM
Thailand THA
Vietnam VIE
West Himalaya WHM
China South-Central CHC ASIA-TEMPERATE
China Southeast CHS
Hainan CHH
Tibet CHT

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Where it actually grows measured, from 61 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 6.7 °C 12.1 °C 20.5 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 25.6 °C 29.4 °C 34.2 °C
Annual rainfall 962 mm 2,865 mm 4,288 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 5 mm 131 mm 645 mm

It is barely found anywhere that freezes. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 61 research-grade observations of Albizia chinensis that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 27 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Acacia auriculata Buch.-Ham. ex Wall.
  • Acacia gualparensis Steud.
  • Acacia lomatocarpa DC.
  • Acacia marginata Buch.-Ham.
  • Acacia smithiana (Roxb.) Steud.
  • Acacia stipulacea Royle
  • Acacia stipulata DC.
  • Albizia chinensis var. chinensis
  • Albizia chinensis var. smithiana (Roxb.) K.C.Shani, S.Chawla & S.Bannet
  • Albizia marginata (Lam.) Merr.
  • Albizia minyi De Wild.
  • Albizia purpurascens Blume ex Miq.
  • Albizia smithiana (Roxb.) Benth.
  • Albizia stipulata (DC.) Boivin
  • Albizia stipulata B.Boivin
  • Albizia stipulata var. smithiana (Roxb.) Prain
  • Arthrosprion stipulatum (DC.) Hassk.
  • Feuilleea stipulata (DC.) Kuntze
  • Inga dimidiata Miq.
  • Inga purpurascens Hassk.
  • Inga umbraculiformis Jungh.
  • Mimosa chinensis Osbeck
  • Mimosa marginata Lam.
  • Mimosa smithiana Roxb.

and 3 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.