Laguncularia racemosa(L.) C.F.Gaertn.

White Mangrovewhite mangrove

WFO wfo-0000358854 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Laguncularia racemosa, photographed by M. Socorro González Elizondo
fig. a M. Socorro González Elizondo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / 2022-05-27 / obs. 201039853

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
565679
Filed as
Laguncularia racemosa (L.) C.F.Gaertn.
Det. by
G. G. Hatschbach 1973-01-01
Collected
G. G. Hatschbach 1971-02-05
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. 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 55 botanical countries

Regions where Laguncularia racemosa is native: Angola, Benin, Cameroon, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Gulf of Guinea Is., Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Florida, Mexico Central, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southeast, Mexico Southwest, Texas, Aruba, Bahamas, Belize, Brazil North, Brazil Northeast, Brazil South, Brazil Southeast, Cayman Is., Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, French Guiana, Galápagos, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Leeward Is., Netherlands Antilles, Nicaragua, Panamá, Peru, Puerto Rico, Southwest Caribbean, Suriname, Trinidad-Tobago, Turks-Caicos Is., Venezuela, Venezuelan Antilles, Windward Is. AngolaBeninCameroonGabonGambiaGhanaGuineaGuinea-BissauGulf of Guinea Is.LiberiaNigeriaSenegalSierra LeoneFloridaMexico CentralMexico GulfMexico NortheastMexico NorthwestMexico SoutheastMexico SouthwestTexasBelizeBrazil NorthBrazil NortheastBrazil SouthBrazil SoutheastColombiaCosta RicaCubaDominican RepublicEcuadorEl SalvadorFrench GuianaGuatemalaGuyanaHaitiHondurasJamaicaNicaraguaPanamáPeruPuerto RicoSouthwest CaribbeanSurinameTrinidad-TobagoVenezuela ArubaBahamasCayman Is.GalápagosLeeward Is.Netherlands AntillesTurks-Caicos Is.Venezuelan AntillesWindward Is.
Native distribution of Laguncularia racemosa, 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
Aruba ARU SOUTHERN AMERICA
Bahamas BAH
Belize BLZ
Brazil North BZN
Brazil Northeast BZE
Brazil South BZS
Brazil Southeast BZL
Cayman Is. CAY
Colombia CLM
Costa Rica COS
Cuba CUB
Dominican Republic DOM
Ecuador ECU
El Salvador ELS
French Guiana FRG
Galápagos GAL
Guatemala GUA
Guyana GUY
Haiti HAI
Honduras HON
Jamaica JAM
Leeward Is. LEE
Netherlands Antilles NLA
Nicaragua NIC
Panamá PAN
Peru PER
Puerto Rico PUE
Southwest Caribbean SWC
Suriname SUR
Trinidad-Tobago TRT
Turks-Caicos Is. TCI
Venezuela VEN
Venezuelan Antilles VNA
Windward Is. WIN
Angola ANG AFRICA
Benin BEN
Cameroon CMN
Gabon GAB
Gambia GAM
Ghana GHA
Guinea GUI
Guinea-Bissau GNB
Gulf of Guinea Is. GGI
Liberia LBR
Nigeria NGA
Senegal SEN
Sierra Leone SIE
Florida FLA NORTHERN AMERICA
Mexico Central MXC
Mexico Gulf MXG
Mexico Northeast MXE
Mexico Northwest MXN
Mexico Southeast MXT
Mexico Southwest MXS
Texas TEX

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 121 in flower of 333 examined

Proportion of examined Laguncularia racemosa in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 16 26 62% 43% to 78%
Feb 3 18 17% 6% to 39%
Mar 9 46 20% 11% to 33%
Apr 11 27 41% 25% to 59%
May 11 28 39% 24% to 58%
Jun 15 25 60% 41% to 77%
Jul 14 25 56% 37% to 73%
Aug 5 31 16% 7% to 33%
Sep 9 30 30% 17% to 48%
Oct 4 25 16% 6% to 35%
Nov 14 28 50% 33% to 67%
Dec 10 24 42% 24% to 61%

Peak flowering in Jan. Each bar is the share of Laguncularia racemosa 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. 121 of 333 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 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 2,011 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 12.8 °C 18.7 °C 24.4 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 27.9 °C 29.6 °C 31.4 °C
Annual rainfall 638 mm 1,342 mm 2,375 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 6 mm 159 mm 265 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 2,011 research-grade observations of Laguncularia racemosa 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 9 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.

  • Conocarpus racemosus L.
  • Horau racemosus (L.) M.Gómez
  • Laguncularia glabriflora C.Presl
  • Laguncularia martii Colla
  • Laguncularia obovata Miq.
  • Laguncularia racemosa f. longifolia J.F.Macbr.
  • Laguncularia racemosa var. glabriflora (C.Presl) Stace
  • Rhizaeris alba Raf.
  • Schousboea commutata Spreng.

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.