Barringtonia asiaticaKurz

Beach BarringtoniaFish Poison TreeMango Pinesea putat

WFO wfo-0000774825 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Barringtonia asiatica, photographed by Светлана Царахова
fig. a Светлана Царахова, CC0 1.0 / 2022-02-24 / obs. 180869641

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 55 botanical countries

Regions where Barringtonia asiatica is native: Chagos Archipelago, Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, Réunion, Seychelles, Tanzania, Nansei-shoto, Ogasawara-shoto, Taiwan, Andaman Is., Bangladesh, Bismarck Archipelago, Borneo, Cambodia, Cocos (Keeling) Is., India, Jawa, Lesser Sunda Is., Malaya, Maldives, Maluku, Myanmar, New Guinea, Nicobar Is., Philippines, Solomon Is., South China Sea, Sri Lanka, Sulawesi, Sumatera, Thailand, Vietnam, Queensland, Caroline Is., Cook Is., Fiji, Gilbert Is., Line Is., Marianas, Marquesas, Marshall Is., Nauru, New Caledonia, Niue, Samoa, Santa Cruz Is., Society Is., Tokelau-Manihiki, Tonga, Tuamotu, Tubuai Is., Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Wallis-Futuna Is. MadagascarTanzaniaTaiwanBangladeshBismarck ArchipelagoBorneoCambodiaIndiaJawaLesser Sunda Is.MalayaMalukuMyanmarNew GuineaPhilippinesSolomon Is.Sri LankaSulawesiSumateraThailandVietnamQueenslandFijiNew Caledonia Chagos ArchipelagoComorosMauritiusRéunionSeychellesNansei-shotoAndaman Is.MaldivesNicobar Is.South China SeaCaroline Is.Cook Is.Line Is.MarianasMarquesasMarshall Is.NauruNiueSamoaSociety Is.Tokelau-ManihikiTongaTuamotuTubuai Is.TuvaluVanuatuWallis-Futuna Is.
Native distribution of Barringtonia asiatica, 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
Bangladesh BAN
Bismarck Archipelago BIS
Borneo BOR
Cambodia CBD
Cocos (Keeling) Is. CKI
India IND
Jawa JAW
Lesser Sunda Is. LSI
Malaya MLY
Maldives MDV
Maluku MOL
Myanmar MYA
New Guinea NWG
Nicobar Is. NCB
Philippines PHI
Solomon Is. SOL
South China Sea SCS
Sri Lanka SRL
Sulawesi SUL
Sumatera SUM
Thailand THA
Vietnam VIE
Caroline Is. CRL PACIFIC
Cook Is. COO
Fiji FIJ
Gilbert Is. GIL
Line Is. LIN
Marianas MRN
Marquesas MRQ
Marshall Is. MRS
Nauru NRU
New Caledonia NWC
Niue NUE
Samoa SAM
Santa Cruz Is. SCZ
Society Is. SCI
Tokelau-Manihiki TOK
Tonga TON
Tuamotu TUA
Tubuai Is. TUB
Tuvalu TUV
Vanuatu VAN
Wallis-Futuna Is. WAL
Chagos Archipelago CGS AFRICA
Comoros COM
Madagascar MDG
Mauritius MAU
Réunion REU
Seychelles SEY
Tanzania TAN
Nansei-shoto NNS ASIA-TEMPERATE
Ogasawara-shoto OGA
Taiwan TAI
Queensland QLD AUSTRALASIA

Not drawn on the map: Ogasawara-shoto, Cocos (Keeling) Is., Gilbert Is., Santa Cruz Is.. We hold no public-domain boundary for these regions, so they are listed rather than guessed at.

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 116 in flower of 256 examined

Proportion of examined Barringtonia asiatica in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 13 25 52% 34% to 70%
Feb 9 24 38% 21% to 57%
Mar 7 24 29% 15% to 49%
Apr 10 20 50% 30% to 70%
May 7 14 50% 27% to 73%
Jun 9 15 60% 36% to 80%
Jul 8 16 50% 28% to 72%
Aug 8 21 38% 21% to 59%
Sep 8 18 44% 25% to 66%
Oct 18 28 64% 46% to 79%
Nov 10 22 45% 27% to 65%
Dec 9 29 31% 17% to 49%

Peak flowering in Oct. Each bar is the share of Barringtonia asiatica 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. 116 of 256 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 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.

Where it actually grows measured, from 1,987 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 14.8 °C 23.5 °C 25.6 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 26.5 °C 28.7 °C 31.1 °C
Annual rainfall 1,242 mm 2,318 mm 3,813 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 50 mm 250 mm 606 mm

It is not found anywhere that gets close to freezing. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 1,987 research-grade observations of Barringtonia asiatica 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. Climate from CHELSA V2.1 (Karger et al. 2017); occurrences from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 13 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.

  • Agasta asiatica (L.) Miers
  • Agasta indica Miers
  • Agasta splendida Miers
  • Barringtonia butonica J.R.Forst. & G.Forst.
  • Barringtonia levequii Jard.
  • Barringtonia littorea Oken
  • Barringtonia senequli Jard.
  • Barringtonia speciosa J.R.Forst. & G.Forst.
  • Butonica speciosa (J.R.Forst. & G.Forst.) Lam.
  • Huttum speciosum (J.R.Forst. & G.Forst.) Britten
  • Mammea asiatica L.
  • Michelia asiatica Kuntze
  • Mitraria commersonia J.F.Gmel.

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.