Gmelina asiaticaL.

Asian bushbeech

WFO wfo-0000974017 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Gmelina asiatica, photographed by Haneesh K M
fig. a Haneesh K M, CC0 1.0 / 2022-06-11 / obs. 205507448
Gmelina asiatica, photographed by Haneesh K M
fig. b Haneesh K M, CC0 1.0 / obs. 187440210
Gmelina asiatica, photographed by Haneesh K M
fig. c Haneesh K M, CC0 1.0 / obs. 185986818
Gmelina asiatica, photographed by Haneesh K M
fig. d Haneesh K M, CC0 1.0 / obs. 185986692
Gmelina asiatica, photographed by Haneesh K M
fig. e Haneesh K M, CC0 1.0 / obs. 150947179
Gmelina asiatica, photographed by Ravuri Krishna Chaitanya
fig. f Ravuri Krishna Chaitanya, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 146761661
Gmelina asiatica, photographed by Haneesh K M
fig. g Haneesh K M, CC0 1.0 / obs. 77235327
Gmelina asiatica, photographed by Haneesh K M
fig. h Haneesh K M, CC0 1.0 / obs. 77235309

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 10 botanical countries

Regions where Gmelina asiatica is native: Andaman Is., Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Laos, Myanmar, Nicobar Is., Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam BangladeshCambodiaIndiaLaosMyanmarSri LankaThailandVietnam Andaman Is.Nicobar Is.
Native distribution of Gmelina asiatica, 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
Bangladesh BAN
Cambodia CBD
India IND
Laos LAO
Myanmar MYA
Nicobar Is. NCB
Sri Lanka SRL
Thailand THA
Vietnam VIE

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 102 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 14.5 °C 17.7 °C 22.9 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 31.0 °C 33.6 °C 38.5 °C
Annual rainfall 815 mm 1,026 mm 1,542 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 16 mm 28 mm 146 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 102 research-grade observations of Gmelina asiatica 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 8 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.

  • Gmelina asiatica f. lobata Moldenke
  • Gmelina asiatica f. parvifolia (Roxb.) Moldenke
  • Gmelina attenuata H.R.Fletcher
  • Gmelina elliptica f. lobata (Gaertn.) Moldenke
  • Gmelina lobata Gaertn.
  • Gmelina paniculata H.R.Fletcher
  • Gmelina parvifolia Roxb.
  • Premna parvifolia Roth

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.