Diospyros maritimaBlume

Malaysian persimmon

WFO wfo-0000649303 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Diospyros maritima, photographed by Victor Chen
fig. a Victor Chen, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-12-04 / obs. 171249481
Diospyros maritima, photographed by 呂一起(Lyu yi-chi)
fig. b 呂一起(Lyu yi-chi), CC BY 4.0 / obs. 32127532
Diospyros maritima, photographed by Cheng-Tao Lin
fig. c Cheng-Tao Lin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 60435500
Diospyros maritima, photographed by 呂一起(Lyu yi-chi)
fig. d 呂一起(Lyu yi-chi), CC BY 4.0 / obs. 165477540
Diospyros maritima, photographed by 呂一起(Lyu yi-chi)
fig. e 呂一起(Lyu yi-chi), CC BY 4.0 / obs. 165544145
Diospyros maritima, photographed by 葉子
fig. f 葉子, CC0 1.0 / obs. 95832223
Diospyros maritima, photographed by Takaaki Hattori
fig. g Takaaki Hattori, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 61546916
Diospyros maritima, photographed by 呂一起(Lyu yi-chi)
fig. h 呂一起(Lyu yi-chi), CC BY 4.0 / obs. 32562355

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
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Accession
K000639126
Filed as
Diospyros maritima Blume
Det. by
Clare Drinkell
Collected
Malam, K.
Origin
MY
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 18 botanical countries

Regions where Diospyros maritima is native: China South-Central, Nansei-shoto, Taiwan, Borneo, Cambodia, Jawa, Laos, Lesser Sunda Is., Maluku, New Guinea, Philippines, Solomon Is., Sulawesi, Sumatera, Vietnam, Northern Territory, Queensland, Western Australia China South-CentralTaiwanBorneoCambodiaJawaLaosLesser Sunda Is.MalukuNew GuineaPhilippinesSolomon Is.SulawesiSumateraVietnamNorthern TerritoryQueenslandWestern Australia Nansei-shoto
Native distribution of Diospyros maritima, 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
Borneo BOR ASIA-TROPICAL
Cambodia CBD
Jawa JAW
Laos LAO
Lesser Sunda Is. LSI
Maluku MOL
New Guinea NWG
Philippines PHI
Solomon Is. SOL
Sulawesi SUL
Sumatera SUM
Vietnam VIE
China South-Central CHC ASIA-TEMPERATE
Nansei-shoto NNS
Taiwan TAI
Northern Territory NTA AUSTRALASIA
Queensland QLD
Western Australia WAU

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 170 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 12.3 °C 18.0 °C 20.9 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 27.3 °C 28.6 °C 30.7 °C
Annual rainfall 1,510 mm 2,631 mm 3,840 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 56 mm 123 mm 734 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 170 research-grade observations of Diospyros maritima 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.

  • Cargillia laxa R.Br.
  • Cargillia maritima Hassk.
  • Cargillia megalocarpa F.Muell.
  • Diospyros camarinensis Merr.
  • Diospyros kusanoi Hayata
  • Diospyros laxa (R.Br.) F.M.Bailey
  • Diospyros liukiuensis Makino
  • Diospyros maritima var. oblongata Bakh.
  • Diospyros maritima var. ovalifolia Bakh.
  • Diospyros nitens W.Fitzg.
  • Diospyros tetrandra Span.
  • Maba megalocarpa F.Muell.

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.