Erythrina variegataL.

Indian Coral Treetiger's claw

WFO wfo-0000181193 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Erythrina variegata, photographed by Haneesh K M
fig. a Haneesh K M, CC0 1.0 / 2022-02-27 / obs. 181183449

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
600952
Filed as
Erythrina variegata L.
Det. by
B. A. Krukoff 1941-01-01
Collected
J. Aloisi 1939-09-13
Origin
BR
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 56 botanical countries

Regions where Erythrina variegata is native: Aldabra, Comoros, Madagascar, Seychelles, Tanzania, China South-Central, China Southeast, Hainan, Nansei-shoto, Taiwan, Andaman Is., Assam, Bangladesh, Bismarck Archipelago, Borneo, Cambodia, Christmas I., Cocos (Keeling) Is., East Himalaya, India, Jawa, Laccadive Is., Laos, Lesser Sunda Is., Malaya, Maldives, Maluku, Myanmar, New Guinea, Nicobar Is., Philippines, Solomon Is., South China Sea, Sri Lanka, Sulawesi, Sumatera, Thailand, Vietnam, West Himalaya, Northern Territory, Queensland, Caroline Is., Cook Is., Fiji, Marianas, Marquesas, Marshall Is., Nauru, New Caledonia, Niue, Samoa, Society Is., Tonga, Tuamotu, Tubuai Is., Vanuatu MadagascarTanzaniaChina South-CentralChina SoutheastHainanTaiwanAssamBangladeshBismarck ArchipelagoBorneoCambodiaEast HimalayaIndiaJawaLaosLesser Sunda Is.MalayaMalukuMyanmarNew GuineaPhilippinesSolomon Is.Sri LankaSulawesiSumateraThailandVietnamWest HimalayaNorthern TerritoryQueenslandFijiNew Caledonia AldabraComorosSeychellesNansei-shotoAndaman Is.Christmas I.Laccadive Is.MaldivesNicobar Is.South China SeaCaroline Is.Cook Is.MarianasMarquesasMarshall Is.NauruNiueSamoaSociety Is.TongaTuamotuTubuai Is.Vanuatu
Native distribution of Erythrina variegata, 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
Assam ASS
Bangladesh BAN
Bismarck Archipelago BIS
Borneo BOR
Cambodia CBD
Christmas I. XMS
Cocos (Keeling) Is. CKI
East Himalaya EHM
India IND
Jawa JAW
Laccadive Is. LDV
Laos LAO
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
West Himalaya WHM
Caroline Is. CRL PACIFIC
Cook Is. COO
Fiji FIJ
Marianas MRN
Marquesas MRQ
Marshall Is. MRS
Nauru NRU
New Caledonia NWC
Niue NUE
Samoa SAM
Society Is. SCI
Tonga TON
Tuamotu TUA
Tubuai Is. TUB
Vanuatu VAN
Aldabra ALD AFRICA
Comoros COM
Madagascar MDG
Seychelles SEY
Tanzania TAN
China South-Central CHC ASIA-TEMPERATE
China Southeast CHS
Hainan CHH
Nansei-shoto NNS
Taiwan TAI
Northern Territory NTA AUSTRALASIA
Queensland QLD

Not drawn on the map: Cocos (Keeling) Is.. 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.

Flowering 41 in flower of 68 examined

Proportion of examined Erythrina variegata in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 4 7 57% 25% to 84%
Feb 12 12 100% 76% to 100%
Mar 13 15 87% 62% to 96%
Apr 9 14 64% 39% to 84%
May 0 1 too few examined
Jun 0 2 too few examined
Jul 3 8 38% 14% to 69%
Aug 0 4 too few examined
Sep 0 2 too few examined
Oct 0 0 too few examined
Nov 0 1 too few examined
Dec 0 2 too few examined

Peak flowering in Feb. Each bar is the share of Erythrina variegata observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 41 of 68 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 7 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Where it actually grows measured, from 405 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 5.7 °C 14.3 °C 24.4 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 24.2 °C 29.8 °C 38.0 °C
Annual rainfall 804 mm 2,011 mm 3,768 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 5 mm 91 mm 462 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 405 research-grade observations of Erythrina variegata 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. Climate from CHELSA V2.1 (Karger et al. 2017); occurrences from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 56 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.

  • Chirocalyx candolleanus Walp.
  • Chirocalyx divaricatus (Moc. & Sessé ex DC.) Walp.
  • Chirocalyx indicus (Lam.) Walp.
  • Chirocalyx pictus (L.) Walp.
  • Corallodendron divaricatum (Moc. & Sessé ex DC.) Kuntze
  • Corallodendron lobulatum (Miq.) Kuntze
  • Corallodendron orientale (L.) Kuntze
  • Corallodendron spathaceum (DC.) Kuntze
  • Erythrina alba Cogn. & Marchand
  • Erythrina alba Cogn. & Marchal
  • Erythrina boninensis Tuyama
  • Erythrina carnea Blanco
  • Erythrina corallodendron Lam.
  • Erythrina corallodendron Lour.
  • Erythrina corallodendron var. orientalis L.
  • Erythrina divaricata Moc. & Sessé ex DC.
  • Erythrina fitzalanii W.Hill
  • Erythrina indica Lam.
  • Erythrina indica var. alba Blatt. & Millard
  • Erythrina indica var. alba W.S.Millard & Blatt.
  • Erythrina indica var. fastigiata Guill.
  • Erythrina indica var. orientalis (L.) Merr.
  • Erythrina indica var. phlebocarpa (F.M.Bailey) Domin
  • Erythrina indica var. picta B. & M.

and 32 more.

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.