Litsea cubeba(Lour.) Pers.

litsea

WFO wfo-0000365367 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Litsea cubeba, photographed by Toby Y
fig. a Toby Y, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-01-16 / obs. 176086186
Litsea cubeba, photographed by Agnes Trekker
fig. b Agnes Trekker, CC0 1.0 / obs. 175813594
Litsea cubeba, photographed by Agnes Trekker
fig. c Agnes Trekker, CC0 1.0 / obs. 171073031
Litsea cubeba, photographed by Agnes Trekker
fig. d Agnes Trekker, CC0 1.0 / obs. 169735610
Litsea cubeba, photographed by Jacy Chen
fig. e Jacy Chen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 131706268
Litsea cubeba, photographed by Michael Meiring
fig. f Michael Meiring, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 112429787
Litsea cubeba, photographed by Jacy Chen
fig. g Jacy Chen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 111282677
Litsea cubeba, photographed by portioid
fig. h portioid, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 94125523

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 20 botanical countries

Regions where Litsea cubeba is native: China South-Central, China Southeast, Hainan, Japan, Nansei-shoto, Taiwan, Tibet, Assam, Bangladesh, Borneo, Cambodia, East Himalaya, Jawa, Laos, Malaya, Myanmar, Nepal, Sumatera, Thailand, Vietnam China South-CentralChina SoutheastHainanJapanTaiwanTibetAssamBangladeshBorneoCambodiaEast HimalayaJawaLaosMalayaMyanmarNepalSumateraThailandVietnam Nansei-shoto
Native distribution of Litsea cubeba, 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
Assam ASS ASIA-TROPICAL
Bangladesh BAN
Borneo BOR
Cambodia CBD
East Himalaya EHM
Jawa JAW
Laos LAO
Malaya MLY
Myanmar MYA
Nepal NEP
Sumatera SUM
Thailand THA
Vietnam VIE
China South-Central CHC ASIA-TEMPERATE
China Southeast CHS
Hainan CHH
Japan JAP
Nansei-shoto NNS
Taiwan TAI
Tibet CHT

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 104 in flower of 203 examined

Peak flowering in Mar. Each bar is the share of Litsea cubeba 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. 104 of 203 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 3 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.

Also published as 38 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.

  • Actinodaphne citrata (Blume) Hayata
  • Aperula formosana Nakai
  • Aperula oxyphylla (Nees) Blume
  • Benzoin aromaticum (Brandis) Rehder
  • Benzoin citratum Koidz.
  • Benzoin cubeba (Lour.) Hatus.
  • Benzoin oxyphyllum (Nees) Kuntze
  • Cubeba pipereta Raf.
  • Cylicodaphne citrata (Blume) Kostel.
  • Daphnidium cubeba (Lour.) Nees
  • Daphnidium oxyphyllum Nees
  • Laurus cubeba Lour.
  • Laurus piperita Meisn.
  • Lindera aromatica Brandis
  • Lindera citrata (Blume) Koidz.
  • Lindera dielsii H.Lév.
  • Lindera oxyphylla (Nees) Hook.f.
  • Lindera reticulosa Kosterm.
  • Litsea citrata Blume
  • Litsea cubeba f. glabrata (Diels) N.Chao & J.S.Liu
  • Litsea cubeba f. obtusifolia Yen C.Yang & P.H.Huang
  • Litsea dielsii (H.Lév.) H.Lév.
  • Litsea mollifolia var. glabrata (Diels) Chun
  • Litsea mollis var. glabrata Diels

and 14 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.