Aralia elata(Miq.) Seem.

Japanese angelica tree

WFO wfo-0000257053 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Aralia elata, photographed by Mila C.
fig. a Mila C., CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-28 / obs. 201353442

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.

Native range 12 botanical countries

Regions where Aralia elata is native: Amur, China North-Central, China South-Central, China Southeast, Japan, Khabarovsk, Korea, Manchuria, Nansei-shoto, Primorye, Sakhalin, Taiwan AmurChina North-CentralChina South-CentralChina SoutheastJapanKhabarovskManchuriaPrimoryeSakhalinTaiwan KoreaNansei-shoto
Native distribution of Aralia elata, 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
Amur AMU ASIA-TEMPERATE
China North-Central CHN
China South-Central CHC
China Southeast CHS
Japan JAP
Khabarovsk KHA
Korea KOR
Manchuria CHM
Nansei-shoto NNS
Primorye PRM
Sakhalin SAK
Taiwan TAI

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.

Flowering 76 in flower of 330 examined

Proportion of examined Aralia elata in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 0 6 0% 0% to 39%
Feb 0 5 0% 0% to 43%
Mar 0 4 too few examined
Apr 0 31 0% 0% to 11%
May 0 31 0% 0% to 11%
Jun 0 27 0% 0% to 12%
Jul 3 25 12% 4% to 30%
Aug 47 83 57% 46% to 67%
Sep 23 78 29% 21% to 40%
Oct 3 26 12% 4% to 29%
Nov 0 11 0% 0% to 26%
Dec 0 3 too few examined

Peak flowering in Aug. Each bar is the share of Aralia elata observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 76 of 330 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 2 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 49 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.

  • Aralia bipinnata var. inermis (Yanagita) T.Yamaz.
  • Aralia canescens Siebold & Zucc.
  • Aralia chinensis var. albomarginata Bean
  • Aralia chinensis var. aureovariegata Rehder
  • Aralia chinensis var. canescens (Siebold & Zucc.) Lavallée
  • Aralia chinensis var. canescens (Siebold & Zucc.) Koehne
  • Aralia chinensis var. elata (Miq.) Lavallée
  • Aralia chinensis var. fastigiata Skeels & Van Eselt.
  • Aralia chinensis var. glabrescens (Franch. & Sav.) C.K.Schneid.
  • Aralia chinensis var. mandshurica (Rupr. & Maxim.) Rehder
  • Aralia chinensis var. nuda Nakai
  • Aralia chinensis var. pyramidalis Bean
  • Aralia chinensis var. variegata (Anon.) Rehder
  • Aralia elata f. aureovariegata (Rehder) Nakai
  • Aralia elata f. canescens (Siebold & Zucc.) Nakai
  • Aralia elata f. canescens (Siebold & Zucc.) T.Yamaz.
  • Aralia elata f. fastigiata Rehder
  • Aralia elata f. inermis M.Kim
  • Aralia elata f. pyramidalis (Bean) Rehder
  • Aralia elata f. rotundata (Nakai) W.Lee
  • Aralia elata f. subinermis (Ohwi) Jôtani
  • Aralia elata f. variegata (Anon.) Nakai
  • Aralia elata var. canescens (Siebold & Zucc.) Pojark.
  • Aralia elata var. canescens (Siebold & Zucc.) Nakai

and 25 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.