Enhalus acoroides(L.f.) Royle

Species code: Ea

WFO wfo-0000770776 Accepted WFO 2026-06 3 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–c · 3 separate observations

Enhalus acoroides, photographed by luluchouette
fig. a luluchouette, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-01-16 / obs. 183182846
Enhalus acoroides, photographed by luluchouette
fig. b luluchouette, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 182854267
Enhalus acoroides, photographed by zhangshen
fig. c zhangshen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 58426035

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
202729
Filed as
Enhalus acoroides (L.f.) Royle
Det. by
M. Y. Choi
Collected
E. Albert 2002-01-10
Origin
FM
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 37 botanical countries

Regions where Enhalus acoroides is native: Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Seychelles, Somalia, Tanzania, Hainan, Nansei-shoto, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Andaman Is., Bismarck Archipelago, Borneo, Cambodia, India, Jawa, Lesser Sunda Is., Malaya, Maldives, Maluku, Myanmar, New Guinea, Nicobar Is., Philippines, Solomon Is., South China Sea, Sri Lanka, Sulawesi, Sumatera, Thailand, Vietnam, Northern Territory, Queensland, Western Australia, Caroline Is., Marianas, New Caledonia KenyaMadagascarMozambiqueSomaliaTanzaniaHainanSaudi ArabiaYemenBismarck ArchipelagoBorneoCambodiaIndiaJawaLesser Sunda Is.MalayaMalukuMyanmarNew GuineaPhilippinesSolomon Is.Sri LankaSulawesiSumateraThailandVietnamNorthern TerritoryQueenslandWestern AustraliaNew Caledonia SeychellesNansei-shotoAndaman Is.MaldivesNicobar Is.South China SeaCaroline Is.Marianas
Native distribution of Enhalus acoroides, 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
Andaman Is. AND ASIA-TROPICAL
Bismarck Archipelago BIS
Borneo BOR
Cambodia CBD
India IND
Jawa JAW
Lesser Sunda Is. LSI
Malaya MLY
Maldives MDV
Maluku MOL
Myanmar MYA
New Guinea NWG
Nicobar Is. NCB
Philippines PHI
Solomon Is. SOL
South China Sea SCS
Sri Lanka SRL
Sulawesi SUL
Sumatera SUM
Thailand THA
Vietnam VIE
Kenya KEN AFRICA
Madagascar MDG
Mozambique MOZ
Seychelles SEY
Somalia SOM
Tanzania TAN
Hainan CHH ASIA-TEMPERATE
Nansei-shoto NNS
Saudi Arabia SAU
Yemen YEM
Northern Territory NTA AUSTRALASIA
Queensland QLD
Western Australia WAU
Caroline Is. CRL PACIFIC
Marianas MRN
New Caledonia NWC

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 22.6 °C 25.0 °C 25.7 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 27.9 °C 28.7 °C 30.6 °C
Annual rainfall 1,386 mm 2,278 mm 2,718 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 49 mm 315 mm 500 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 Enhalus acoroides 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 4 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.

  • Enhalus koenigii Rich.
  • Enhalus marinus Griff.
  • Stratiotes acoroides L.f.
  • Vallisneria sphaerocarpa Blanco

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.