Chionanthus mala-elengi(Dennst.) P.S.Green

WFO wfo-0000830159 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 4 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 4 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.

Chionanthus mala-elengi, photographed by Dinesh Valke
fig. a Dinesh Valke, CC BY-SA 4.0 / 2016-11-15 / obs. 141846920
Chionanthus mala-elengi, photographed by Dinesh Valke
fig. b Dinesh Valke, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 151147178
Chionanthus mala-elengi, photographed by Dinesh Valke
fig. c Dinesh Valke, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 159846415
Chionanthus mala-elengi, photographed by T R Shankar Raman
fig. d T R Shankar Raman, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 194612852
Chionanthus mala-elengi, photographed by Dinesh Valke
fig. e Dinesh Valke, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 151147183
Chionanthus mala-elengi, photographed by Dinesh Valke
fig. f Dinesh Valke, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 159846424
Chionanthus mala-elengi, photographed by Dinesh Valke
fig. g Dinesh Valke, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 151147175
Chionanthus mala-elengi, photographed by T R Shankar Raman
fig. h T R Shankar Raman, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 194612878

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 14 botanical countries

Regions where Chionanthus mala-elengi is native: Andaman Is., Assam, Bangladesh, Cambodia, East Himalaya, India, Laos, Malaya, Myanmar, Nepal, Sumatera, Thailand, Vietnam, West Himalaya AssamBangladeshCambodiaEast HimalayaIndiaLaosMalayaMyanmarNepalSumateraThailandVietnamWest Himalaya Andaman Is.
Native distribution of Chionanthus mala-elengi, 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
Cambodia CBD
East Himalaya EHM
India IND
Laos LAO
Malaya MLY
Myanmar MYA
Nepal NEP
Sumatera SUM
Thailand THA
Vietnam VIE
West Himalaya WHM

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.

Also published as 26 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.

  • Chionanthus burmanicus Panigrahi
  • Chionanthus burmanicus var. acuminatus (Wall. ex DC.) Panigrahi
  • Chionanthus caudatus (Collett & Hemsl.) Bahadur & R.C.Gaur
  • Chionanthus linocieroides (Wight) Bennet & Raizada
  • Chionanthus malabaricus (Wall. ex G.Don) Bedd.
  • Chionanthus terniflorus Griff.
  • Chionanthus terniflorus var. acuminatus (Wall. ex DC.) Bahadur & R.C.Gaur
  • Chionanthus wightii (C.B.Clarke) Bahadur & R.C.Gaur
  • Forsythia mala-elengi Dennst.
  • Ligustrum microphylla (J.Graham) S.M.Almeida
  • Ligustrum microphyllum (J.Graham) S.M.Almeida
  • Linociera acuminata Wall. ex DC.
  • Linociera acuminata Wall.
  • Linociera caudata Collett & Hemsl.
  • Linociera malabarica Wall. ex G.Don
  • Linociera pierrei Gagnep.
  • Linociera pubipaniculata Merr.
  • Linociera terniflora Wall. ex G.Don
  • Linociera terniflora var. acuminata Wall. ex C.B.Clarke
  • Linociera wightii C.B.Clarke
  • Mayepea acuminata Kuntze
  • Mayepea linocierodes (Wight) Kuntze
  • Mayepea malabarica (Wall. ex G.Don) Kuntze
  • Olea linocieroides Wight

and 2 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. 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.