Lumnitzera racemosaWilld.

white-flowered black mangrove

WFO wfo-0000358860 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Lumnitzera racemosa, photographed by Manis Lin
fig. a Manis Lin, CC0 1.0 / 2022-05-03 / obs. 194211256

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 39 botanical countries

Regions where Lumnitzera racemosa is native: Aldabra, Chagos Archipelago, Comoros, Kenya, KwaZulu-Natal, Madagascar, Mozambique, Seychelles, Tanzania, China Southeast, Hainan, Korea, Nansei-shoto, Taiwan, Andaman Is., Bangladesh, Borneo, Cambodia, India, Jawa, Lesser Sunda Is., Malaya, Maldives, Maluku, Myanmar, New Guinea, Nicobar Is., Philippines, South China Sea, Sri Lanka, Sulawesi, Sumatera, Thailand, Vietnam, Northern Territory, Queensland, Western Australia, New Caledonia, Vanuatu KenyaKwaZulu-NatalMadagascarMozambiqueTanzaniaChina SoutheastHainanTaiwanBangladeshBorneoCambodiaIndiaJawaLesser Sunda Is.MalayaMalukuMyanmarNew GuineaPhilippinesSri LankaSulawesiSumateraThailandVietnamNorthern TerritoryQueenslandWestern AustraliaNew Caledonia AldabraChagos ArchipelagoComorosSeychellesKoreaNansei-shotoAndaman Is.MaldivesNicobar Is.South China SeaVanuatu
Native distribution of Lumnitzera 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
Andaman Is. AND ASIA-TROPICAL
Bangladesh BAN
Borneo BOR
Cambodia CBD
India IND
Jawa JAW
Lesser Sunda Is. LSI
Malaya MLY
Maldives MDV
Maluku MOL
Myanmar MYA
New Guinea NWG
Nicobar Is. NCB
Philippines PHI
South China Sea SCS
Sri Lanka SRL
Sulawesi SUL
Sumatera SUM
Thailand THA
Vietnam VIE
Aldabra ALD AFRICA
Chagos Archipelago CGS
Comoros COM
Kenya KEN
KwaZulu-Natal NAT
Madagascar MDG
Mozambique MOZ
Seychelles SEY
Tanzania TAN
China Southeast CHS ASIA-TEMPERATE
Hainan CHH
Korea KOR
Nansei-shoto NNS
Taiwan TAI
Northern Territory NTA AUSTRALASIA
Queensland QLD
Western Australia WAU
New Caledonia NWC PACIFIC
Vanuatu VAN

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 173 in flower of 225 examined

Proportion of examined Lumnitzera racemosa in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 33 38 87% 73% to 94%
Feb 7 7 100% 65% to 100%
Mar 8 12 67% 39% to 86%
Apr 9 10 90% 60% to 98%
May 14 14 100% 78% to 100%
Jun 30 37 81% 66% to 91%
Jul 10 18 56% 34% to 75%
Aug 16 24 67% 47% to 82%
Sep 8 12 67% 39% to 86%
Oct 6 15 40% 20% to 64%
Nov 13 19 68% 46% to 85%
Dec 19 19 100% 83% to 100%

Peak flowering in Feb. Each bar is the share of Lumnitzera 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. 173 of 225 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 1,581 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 12.8 °C 16.9 °C 24.1 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 27.4 °C 29.5 °C 34.1 °C
Annual rainfall 950 mm 1,622 mm 2,448 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 8 mm 61 mm 241 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 1,581 research-grade observations of Lumnitzera 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 18 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.

  • Bruguiera madagascariensis DC.
  • Bruguiera obtusa Steud.
  • Combretum alternifolium Wight & Arn.
  • Funckia karakandel Dennst.
  • Jussiaea racemosa Rottler ex DC.
  • Laguncularia lutea Gaudich.
  • Laguncularia rosea Gaudich.
  • Lumnitzera edulis Blume ex Laness.
  • Lumnitzera lutea (Gaudich.) C.Presl
  • Lumnitzera racemosa var. pubescens Koord. & Valeton
  • Petaloma alba Blanco
  • Petaloma albiflora Zipp. ex Span.
  • Petaloma alternifolia Roxb.
  • Petaloma alternifolium Roxb.
  • Pokornya ettingshausenii Montrouz.
  • Problastes cuneifolia Reinw.
  • Pyrrhanthus albus Wall.
  • Rhizophora obtusa Dennst.

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. USDA PLANTS Database. common name, checklist symbol LURA3. public domain. 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.