Colubrina arborescens(Mill.) Sarg.

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WFO wfo-0000615210 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Colubrina arborescens, photographed by ritirene
fig. a ritirene, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-03-28 / obs. 185742817
Colubrina arborescens, photographed by Brian Oakes Haiti Hunter
fig. b Brian Oakes Haiti Hunter, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 180097191
Colubrina arborescens, photographed by Daniel Cahen
fig. c Daniel Cahen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 61462819
Colubrina arborescens, photographed by Alan Weakley
fig. d Alan Weakley, CC0 1.0 / obs. 195520531
Colubrina arborescens, photographed by Alan Weakley
fig. e Alan Weakley, CC0 1.0 / obs. 196072305
Colubrina arborescens, photographed by Abby Darrah
fig. f Abby Darrah, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 187273162
Colubrina arborescens, photographed by Elliot Greiner
fig. g Elliot Greiner, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 181332593
Colubrina arborescens, photographed by Brandon Corder
fig. h Brandon Corder, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 175722694

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.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
The New York Botanical Garden
Accession
40689
Filed as
Colubrina arborescens (Mill.) Sarg.
Det. by
T. A. Zanoni 1994-01-01
Collected
D. E. Atha 1994-11-04
Origin
PR
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 22 botanical countries

Regions where Colubrina arborescens is native: Florida, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Southeast, Mexico Southwest, Bahamas, Belize, Cayman Is., Colombia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Leeward Is., Panamá, Puerto Rico, Turks-Caicos Is., Windward Is. FloridaMexico GulfMexico NortheastMexico SoutheastMexico SouthwestBelizeColombiaCubaDominican RepublicEcuadorEl SalvadorGuatemalaHaitiHondurasJamaicaPanamáPuerto Rico BahamasCayman Is.Leeward Is.Turks-Caicos Is.Windward Is.
Native distribution of Colubrina arborescens, 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
Bahamas BAH SOUTHERN AMERICA
Belize BLZ
Cayman Is. CAY
Colombia CLM
Cuba CUB
Dominican Republic DOM
Ecuador ECU
El Salvador ELS
Guatemala GUA
Haiti HAI
Honduras HON
Jamaica JAM
Leeward Is. LEE
Panamá PAN
Puerto Rico PUE
Turks-Caicos Is. TCI
Windward Is. WIN
Florida FLA NORTHERN AMERICA
Mexico Gulf MXG
Mexico Northeast MXE
Mexico Southeast MXT
Mexico Southwest MXS

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 198 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 15.2 °C 21.9 °C 24.1 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 28.0 °C 29.6 °C 31.6 °C
Annual rainfall 1,022 mm 1,434 mm 1,984 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 54 mm 143 mm 302 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 198 research-grade observations of Colubrina arborescens 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 12 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.

  • Ceanothus arborescens Mill.
  • Ceanothus colubrinus (Jacq.) Lam.
  • Celastrus ovatus Hill
  • Colubrina americana Nutt.
  • Colubrina colubrina (Jacq.) Millsp.
  • Colubrina ferruginosa Brongn.
  • Colubrina obtusata Urb.
  • Marcorella colubrina (Jacq.) Raf.
  • Paliurus colubrina Scop.
  • Perfonon ferrugineum Raf.
  • Rhamnus colubrina Jacq.
  • Rhamnus ferruginea Nutt.

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.