Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations
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 3 botanical countries
| Region | TDWG code | Continent |
|---|---|---|
| China North-Central | CHN | ASIA-TEMPERATE |
| China South-Central | CHC | |
| China Southeast | CHS |
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 129 observations
| Condition | 5th percentile | Median | 95th percentile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coldest month, mean daily low | -5.2 °C | 2.0 °C | 3.3 °C |
| Warmest month, mean daily high | 22.3 °C | 27.7 °C | 32.8 °C |
| Annual rainfall | 599 mm | 1,410 mm | 1,738 mm |
| Rainfall in the driest quarter | 29 mm | 123 mm | 231 mm |
It is found where winters bring hard frost. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 129 research-grade observations of Chimonanthus praecox 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 Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.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.
- Beureria praecox (L.) Kuntze
- Butneria praecox (L.) C.K.Schneid.
- Calycanthus praecox L.
- Calycanthus suaveolens Salisb.
- Chimonanthus baokanensis D.M.Chen & Z.L.Dai
- Chimonanthus baokanensis var. yupiensis D.M.Chen & Z.L.Dai
- Chimonanthus caespitosus T.B.Chao, Z.X.Chen & Z.Q.Li
- Chimonanthus fragrans (Loisel.) Lindl.
- Chimonanthus fragrans var. grandiflorus Lindl.
- Chimonanthus grandiflorus (Lindl.) Steud.
- Chimonanthus luteus (G.Don) Biel.
- Chimonanthus parviflorus Raf.
- Chimonanthus praecox f. grandiflorus (Lindl.) Rehder
- Chimonanthus praecox f. intermedius (Makino) Okuyama
- Chimonanthus praecox f. luteus (G.Don) Okuyama
- Chimonanthus praecox f. versicolor B.Zhao
- Chimonanthus praecox var. concolor Makino
- Chimonanthus praecox var. grandiflorus (Lindl.) Makino
- Chimonanthus praecox var. intermedius Makino
- Chimonanthus praecox var. luteus G.Don
- Chimonanthus praecox var. reflexus B.Zhao
- Chimonanthus verus Biel.
- Chimonanthus yunnanensis W.W.Sm.
- Meratia fragrans Loisel.
and 3 more.
Sourcesevery claim on this page
- World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
- iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
- Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
- 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.