Ehretia microphyllaLam.

Scorpionbushscorpionbush

WFO wfo-0000663488 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Ehretia microphylla, photographed by 五色鳥
fig. a 五色鳥, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-28 / obs. 201114081

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 23 botanical countries

Regions where Ehretia microphylla is native: China Southeast, Hainan, Nansei-shoto, Taiwan, Bismarck Archipelago, Borneo, Cambodia, Christmas I., India, Jawa, Laos, Lesser Sunda Is., Malaya, Maluku, Myanmar, New Guinea, Philippines, Solomon Is., Sri Lanka, Sulawesi, Sumatera, Thailand, Vietnam China SoutheastHainanTaiwanBismarck ArchipelagoBorneoCambodiaIndiaJawaLaosLesser Sunda Is.MalayaMalukuMyanmarNew GuineaPhilippinesSolomon Is.Sri LankaSulawesiSumateraThailandVietnam Nansei-shotoChristmas I.
Native distribution of Ehretia microphylla, 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
Bismarck Archipelago BIS ASIA-TROPICAL
Borneo BOR
Cambodia CBD
Christmas I. XMS
India IND
Jawa JAW
Laos LAO
Lesser Sunda Is. LSI
Malaya MLY
Maluku MOL
Myanmar MYA
New Guinea NWG
Philippines PHI
Solomon Is. SOL
Sri Lanka SRL
Sulawesi SUL
Sumatera SUM
Thailand THA
Vietnam VIE
China Southeast CHS ASIA-TEMPERATE
Hainan CHH
Nansei-shoto NNS
Taiwan TAI

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 1,414 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 12.0 °C 14.8 °C 23.8 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 26.4 °C 30.0 °C 34.8 °C
Annual rainfall 851 mm 2,133 mm 3,452 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 38 mm 105 mm 567 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 1,414 research-grade observations of Ehretia microphylla 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.

  • Carmona heterophylla Cav.
  • Carmona microphylla (Lam.) G.Don
  • Carmona retusa (Vahl) Masam.
  • Cordia coromandeliana Retz. ex DC.
  • Cordia retusa Vahl
  • Ehretia buxifolia Roxb.
  • Ehretia buxifolia var. latisepala Gagnep.
  • Ehretia coromandeliana Retz. ex DC.
  • Ehretia dentata Courchet ex Gagnep.
  • Ehretia heterophylla Spreng.
  • Ehretia monopyrena Gottschling & Hilger
  • Lithothamnus buxioides Zipp. ex Span.

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.