Heritiera littoralisAiton

Sundari tree

WFO wfo-0000720317 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Heritiera littoralis, photographed by Steve Fitzgerald
fig. a Steve Fitzgerald, CC BY-SA 4.0 / 2022-05-27 / obs. 201399649

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
204752
Filed as
Heritiera littoralis Dryand.
Det. by
T. Flynn 2005-09-13
Collected
Francisca Sohl 2004-10-25
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 40 botanical countries

Regions where Heritiera littoralis is native: Comoros, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Seychelles, Tanzania, China Southeast, Hainan, Nansei-shoto, Taiwan, Andaman Is., Assam, Bangladesh, Bismarck Archipelago, Borneo, Cambodia, Christmas I., India, Jawa, Lesser Sunda Is., Malaya, Maluku, Myanmar, New Guinea, Nicobar Is., Philippines, Solomon Is., Sri Lanka, Sulawesi, Sumatera, Thailand, Vietnam, Queensland, Caroline Is., Fiji, Marianas, New Caledonia, Santa Cruz Is., Tonga, Vanuatu KenyaMadagascarMozambiqueTanzaniaChina SoutheastHainanTaiwanAssamBangladeshBismarck ArchipelagoBorneoCambodiaIndiaJawaLesser Sunda Is.MalayaMalukuMyanmarNew GuineaPhilippinesSolomon Is.Sri LankaSulawesiSumateraThailandVietnamQueenslandFijiNew Caledonia ComorosSeychellesNansei-shotoAndaman Is.Christmas I.Nicobar Is.Caroline Is.MarianasTongaVanuatu
Native distribution of Heritiera littoralis, 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
India IND
Jawa JAW
Lesser Sunda Is. LSI
Malaya MLY
Maluku MOL
Myanmar MYA
New Guinea NWG
Nicobar Is. NCB
Philippines PHI
Solomon Is. SOL
Sri Lanka SRL
Sulawesi SUL
Sumatera SUM
Thailand THA
Vietnam VIE
Caroline Is. CRL PACIFIC
Fiji FIJ
Marianas MRN
New Caledonia NWC
Santa Cruz Is. SCZ
Tonga TON
Vanuatu VAN
Comoros COM AFRICA
Kenya KEN
Madagascar MDG
Mozambique MOZ
Seychelles SEY
Tanzania TAN
China Southeast CHS ASIA-TEMPERATE
Hainan CHH
Nansei-shoto NNS
Taiwan TAI
Queensland QLD AUSTRALASIA

Not drawn on the map: Santa Cruz 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.

Where it actually grows measured, from 420 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 11.8 °C 19.1 °C 25.1 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 27.4 °C 28.7 °C 30.9 °C
Annual rainfall 1,284 mm 2,222 mm 3,533 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 55 mm 129 mm 514 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 420 research-grade observations of Heritiera littoralis 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 10 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.

  • Amygdalus litoralis (Aiton) Kuntze
  • Balanopteris minor Gaertn.
  • Balanopteris tothila Gaertn.
  • Heritiera fischeri Regel & Rach
  • Heritiera littoralis subsp. littoralis
  • Heritiera littoralis subsp. ralima Arènes
  • Heritiera tothila Kurz
  • Samadera littoralis (Aiton) Oken
  • Sutherlandia littoralis (Aiton) J.F.Gmel.
  • Systemon fischeri Regel

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.