Milicia excelsa(Welw.) C.C.Berg

African teakafrican teak

WFO wfo-0000447908 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 5 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 5 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.

Milicia excelsa, photographed by Carrie Seltzer
fig. a Carrie Seltzer, CC BY 4.0 / 2010-03-29 / obs. 2829006
Milicia excelsa, photographed by Carrie Seltzer
fig. b Carrie Seltzer, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 1465036
Milicia excelsa, photographed by Sunday Berlioz KAKPO
fig. c Sunday Berlioz KAKPO, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 29283876
Milicia excelsa, photographed by Sunday Berlioz KAKPO
fig. d Sunday Berlioz KAKPO, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 28983459
Milicia excelsa, photographed by Carrie Seltzer
fig. e Carrie Seltzer, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 1465037
Milicia excelsa, photographed by Sunday Berlioz KAKPO
fig. f Sunday Berlioz KAKPO, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 29283875
Milicia excelsa, photographed by Sunday Berlioz KAKPO
fig. g Sunday Berlioz KAKPO, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 28983270
Milicia excelsa, photographed by Sunday Berlioz KAKPO
fig. h Sunday Berlioz KAKPO, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 28983423

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 26 botanical countries

Regions where Milicia excelsa is native: Angola, Benin, Burkina, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Gulf of Guinea Is., Ivory Coast, Kenya, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Nigeria, Sudan-South Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zimbabwe AngolaBeninBurkinaBurundiCameroonCentral African RepublicCongoDR CongoEthiopiaGabonGambiaGhanaGuineaGuinea-BissauGulf of Guinea Is.Ivory CoastKenyaLiberiaMalawiMozambiqueNigeriaSudan-South SudanTanzaniaTogoUgandaZimbabwe
Native distribution of Milicia excelsa, 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.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Angola ANG AFRICA
Benin BEN
Burkina BKN
Burundi BUR
Cameroon CMN
Central African Republic CAF
Congo CON
DR Congo ZAI
Ethiopia ETH
Gabon GAB
Gambia GAM
Ghana GHA
Guinea GUI
Guinea-Bissau GNB
Gulf of Guinea Is. GGI
Ivory Coast IVO
Kenya KEN
Liberia LBR
Malawi MLW
Mozambique MOZ
Nigeria NGA
Sudan-South Sudan SUD
Tanzania TAN
Togo TOG
Uganda UGA
Zimbabwe ZIM

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 50 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 13.1 °C 20.6 °C 23.2 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 26.5 °C 31.8 °C 35.9 °C
Annual rainfall 712 mm 1,253 mm 1,746 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 10 mm 61 mm 198 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 50 research-grade observations of Milicia excelsa 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 6 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.

  • Chlorophora alba A.Chev.
  • Chlorophora excelsa (Welw.) Benth. & Hook.f.
  • Chlorophora tenuifolia Engl.
  • Maclura excelsa Bureau
  • Milicia africana Sim
  • Morus excelsa Welw.

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.