Elaeocarpus decipiensF.B.Forbes & Hemsl.

WFO wfo-0000664195 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Elaeocarpus decipiens, photographed by 古淑玲
fig. a 古淑玲, CC0 1.0 / 2022-04-30 / obs. 192107250
Elaeocarpus decipiens, photographed by 葉子
fig. b 葉子, CC0 1.0 / obs. 178172290
Elaeocarpus decipiens, photographed by 呂一起(Lyu yi-chi)
fig. c 呂一起(Lyu yi-chi), CC BY 4.0 / obs. 160016387
Elaeocarpus decipiens, photographed by 呂一起(Lyu yi-chi)
fig. d 呂一起(Lyu yi-chi), CC BY 4.0 / obs. 158154946
Elaeocarpus decipiens, photographed by Jacy Chen
fig. e Jacy Chen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 149579836
Elaeocarpus decipiens, photographed by 葉子
fig. f 葉子, CC0 1.0 / obs. 122710773
Elaeocarpus decipiens, photographed by Jacy Chen
fig. g Jacy Chen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 109922260
Elaeocarpus decipiens, photographed by 葉子
fig. h 葉子, CC0 1.0 / obs. 109094379

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
K000675938
Filed as
Elaeocarpus decipiens F.B.Forbes & Hemsl.
Det. by
Weibel, R.
Collected
s.coll. 1883-07-23
Origin
JP
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. We link to the digitised sheet rather than rehosting it, because the holding institutions do not serve their images to third parties reliably and we are not going to show you a picture we cannot actually deliver. 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 sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 8 botanical countries

Regions where Elaeocarpus decipiens is native: China South-Central, China Southeast, Japan, Kazan-retto, Korea, Nansei-shoto, Taiwan, Vietnam China South-CentralChina SoutheastJapanTaiwanVietnam KoreaNansei-shoto
Native distribution of Elaeocarpus decipiens, 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
China South-Central CHC ASIA-TEMPERATE
China Southeast CHS
Japan JAP
Kazan-retto KZN
Korea KOR
Nansei-shoto NNS
Taiwan TAI
Vietnam VIE ASIA-TROPICAL

Not drawn on the map: Kazan-retto. We hold no public-domain boundary for this region, so it is listed rather than guessed at.

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 852 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 7.7 °C 12.1 °C 15.8 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 25.2 °C 29.2 °C 31.0 °C
Annual rainfall 2,156 mm 3,201 mm 4,435 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 111 mm 482 mm 820 mm

It is barely found anywhere that freezes. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 852 research-grade observations of Elaeocarpus decipiens 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 13 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.

  • Cerasus elliptica (Thunb.) Loisel.
  • Elaeocarpus ellipticus (Thunb.) Makino
  • Elaeocarpus japonicus Turcz.
  • Elaeocarpus lanyuensis C.E.Chang
  • Elaeocarpus makinoi Kaneh.
  • Elaeocarpus pachycarpus Koidz.
  • Elaeocarpus sylvestris var. ellipticus (Thunb.) H.Hara
  • Elaeocarpus sylvestris var. lanyuensis (C.E.Chang) Hung T.Chang
  • Elaeocarpus sylvestris var. pachycarpus (Koidz.) H.Ohba
  • Elaeocarpus zollingeri K.Koch
  • Elaeocarpus zollingeri var. changii (Y.Tang) Yonek.
  • Elaeocarpus zollingeri var. pachycarpus (Koidz.) Yonek.
  • Prunus elliptica Thunb.

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.