Cleyera japonicaThunb.

sakaki

WFO wfo-0000611772 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Cleyera japonica, photographed by Jacy Chen
fig. a Jacy Chen, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-05-06 / obs. 133306134
Cleyera japonica, photographed by Jacy Chen
fig. b Jacy Chen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 127425518
Cleyera japonica, photographed by Jacy Chen
fig. c Jacy Chen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 104716075
Cleyera japonica, photographed by Jacy Chen
fig. d Jacy Chen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 104866190
Cleyera japonica, photographed by りなべる
fig. e りなべる, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 111706466
Cleyera japonica, photographed by Yoshihiro Tokue
fig. f Yoshihiro Tokue, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 56639481
Cleyera japonica, photographed by Jacy Chen
fig. g Jacy Chen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 33240641
Cleyera japonica, photographed by 呂一起(Lyu yi-chi)
fig. h 呂一起(Lyu yi-chi), CC BY 4.0 / obs. 31364664

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 16 botanical countries

Regions where Cleyera japonica is native: China South-Central, China Southeast, Japan, Korea, Nansei-shoto, Taiwan, Tibet, Assam, Bangladesh, East Himalaya, Myanmar, Nepal, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, West Himalaya China South-CentralChina SoutheastJapanTaiwanTibetAssamBangladeshEast HimalayaMyanmarNepalPhilippinesThailandVietnamWest Himalaya KoreaNansei-shoto
Native distribution of Cleyera japonica, 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
Assam ASS ASIA-TROPICAL
Bangladesh BAN
East Himalaya EHM
Myanmar MYA
Nepal NEP
Philippines PHI
Thailand THA
Vietnam VIE
West Himalaya WHM
China South-Central CHC ASIA-TEMPERATE
China Southeast CHS
Japan JAP
Korea KOR
Nansei-shoto NNS
Taiwan TAI
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 389 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -0.3 °C 10.6 °C 14.6 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 20.2 °C 28.4 °C 30.9 °C
Annual rainfall 1,522 mm 3,701 mm 4,855 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 139 mm 599 mm 849 mm

It is found where winters bring light 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 389 research-grade observations of Cleyera japonica 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 51 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.

  • Adinandra chingii Metcalf
  • Adinandra japonica (Thunb.) T.L.Ming
  • Adinandra japonica var. wallichiana (DC.) T.L.Ming
  • Adinandra kweichovensis Hu
  • Adinandra montana Merr.
  • Cleyera fortunei Hook.f.
  • Cleyera grandiflora Wall. ex Choisy
  • Cleyera japonica Siebold & Zucc.
  • Cleyera japonica f. tricolor (G.Nicholson) Kobuski
  • Cleyera japonica unranked tricolor Van Geert
  • Cleyera japonica var. grandiflora (Wall. ex Choisy) Kobuski
  • Cleyera japonica var. hayatae (Masam. & Yamam.) Kobuski
  • Cleyera japonica var. kaempferiana (DC.) Sealy
  • Cleyera japonica var. morii (Yamam.) Masam.
  • Cleyera japonica var. tricolor G.Nicholson
  • Cleyera lushia (Buch.-Ham. ex D.Don) G.Don
  • Cleyera lushia var. wallichiana (DC.) G.Don
  • Cleyera morii (Yamam.) Masam.
  • Cleyera ochnacea DC.
  • Cleyera ochnacea var. grandiflora (Wall. ex Choisy) Choisy
  • Cleyera ochnacea var. kaempferiana DC.
  • Cleyera ochnacea var. lushia (Buch.-Ham. ex D.Don) G.Don
  • Cleyera ochnacea var. wallichiana DC.
  • Cleyera ochnoides Wall. ex G.Don

and 27 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.