Gleditsia sinensisLam.

WFO wfo-0000186270 Accepted WFO 2026-06 4 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–d · 1 observation

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 1 time, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.

Gleditsia sinensis, photographed by Marco Mussita
fig. a Marco Mussita, CC BY 4.0 / 2019-06-14 / obs. 41894790
Gleditsia sinensis, photographed by Marco Mussita
fig. b Marco Mussita, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 41894827
Gleditsia sinensis, photographed by Marco Mussita
fig. c Marco Mussita, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 41894773
Gleditsia sinensis, photographed by Marco Mussita
fig. d Marco Mussita, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 41894175

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 5 botanical countries

Regions where Gleditsia sinensis is native: China North-Central, China South-Central, China Southeast, Manchuria, Qinghai China North-CentralChina South-CentralChina SoutheastManchuriaQinghai
Native distribution of Gleditsia sinensis, 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.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
China North-Central CHN ASIA-TEMPERATE
China South-Central CHC
China Southeast CHS
Manchuria CHM
Qinghai CHQ

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.

Also published as 21 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.

  • Caesalpiniodes macracantha (Desf.) Kuntze
  • Caesalpiniodes sinense (Lam.) Kuntze
  • Caesalpiniodes sinensis (Lam.) Kuntze
  • Gleditsia fontanesii Spach
  • Gleditsia horrida Willd.
  • Gleditsia indica Pers.
  • Gleditsia japonica Lodd. ex Loudon
  • Gleditsia macracantha Desf.
  • Gleditsia macrantha Desf.
  • Gleditsia nana Dippel
  • Gleditsia officinalis Hemsl.
  • Gleditsia pendula Van Geert
  • Gleditsia pendula-excelsa Pynaert
  • Gleditsia sinensis unranked pendula Van Geert
  • Gleditsia sinensis unranked pendula-excelsa Pynaert
  • Gleditsia sinensis var. inermis Duhamel ex Loudon
  • Gleditsia sinensis var. major Loudon
  • Gleditsia sinensis var. pendula G.Nicholson
  • Gleditsia sinensis var. purpurea Loudon
  • Gleditsia xylocarpa Hance
  • Gymnocladus williamsii Hance

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.