Nauclea orientalis(L.) L.

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WFO wfo-0000249611 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Nauclea orientalis, photographed by Steve Fitzgerald
fig. a Steve Fitzgerald, CC BY-SA 4.0 / 2022-04-15 / obs. 188196511
Nauclea orientalis, photographed by Steve Fitzgerald
fig. b Steve Fitzgerald, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 169044724
Nauclea orientalis, photographed by Steve Fitzgerald
fig. c Steve Fitzgerald, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 115829706
Nauclea orientalis, photographed by Richard Fuller
fig. d Richard Fuller, CC0 1.0 / obs. 112004250
Nauclea orientalis, photographed by Steve Fitzgerald
fig. e Steve Fitzgerald, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 106967081
Nauclea orientalis, photographed by Steve Fitzgerald
fig. f Steve Fitzgerald, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 103510611
Nauclea orientalis, photographed by Steve Fitzgerald
fig. g Steve Fitzgerald, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 93656395
Nauclea orientalis, photographed by elawrey
fig. h elawrey, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 33792846

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
840128
Filed as
Nauclea orientalis (L.) L.
Det. by
W. Nanakorn 1988-01-01
Collected
W. Nanakorn 1988-12-15
Origin
TH
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 19 botanical countries

Regions where Nauclea orientalis is native: Bangladesh, Bismarck Archipelago, Borneo, Cambodia, Jawa, Laos, Lesser Sunda Is., Maluku, Myanmar, New Guinea, Philippines, Solomon Is., Sri Lanka, Sulawesi, Sumatera, Thailand, Vietnam, Northern Territory, Queensland BangladeshBismarck ArchipelagoBorneoCambodiaJawaLaosLesser Sunda Is.MalukuMyanmarNew GuineaPhilippinesSolomon Is.Sri LankaSulawesiSumateraThailandVietnamNorthern TerritoryQueensland
Native distribution of Nauclea orientalis, 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
Bangladesh BAN ASIA-TROPICAL
Bismarck Archipelago BIS
Borneo BOR
Cambodia CBD
Jawa JAW
Laos LAO
Lesser Sunda Is. LSI
Maluku MOL
Myanmar MYA
New Guinea NWG
Philippines PHI
Solomon Is. SOL
Sri Lanka SRL
Sulawesi SUL
Sumatera SUM
Thailand THA
Vietnam VIE
Northern Territory NTA AUSTRALASIA
Queensland QLD

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 272 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 12.5 °C 17.2 °C 23.3 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 27.8 °C 30.4 °C 36.7 °C
Annual rainfall 793 mm 1,755 mm 3,685 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 5 mm 83 mm 478 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 272 research-grade observations of Nauclea orientalis 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 37 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.

  • Acrodryon orientalis Spreng.
  • Adina orientalis (L.) Lindeman ex Bakh.f.
  • Bancalus grandifolius (DC.) Kuntze
  • Bancalus orientalis (L.) Kuntze
  • Cadamba nocturna Buch.-Ham.
  • Cephalanthus orientalis L.
  • Nauclea annamensis (Dubard & Eberh.) N.N.Tran
  • Nauclea annamensis (Dubard & Eberh.) Merr.
  • Nauclea coadunata Roxb. ex Sm.
  • Nauclea cordata Roxb.
  • Nauclea elmeri Merr.
  • Nauclea glaberrima Bartl. ex DC.
  • Nauclea grandifolia DC.
  • Nauclea leichhardtii F.Muell.
  • Nauclea lutea Blanco
  • Nauclea macrophylla Blume
  • Nauclea orientalis var. pubescens (Kurz) Craib
  • Nauclea ovoidea (Pierre ex Pit.) N.N.Tran
  • Nauclea roxburghii G.Don
  • Nauclea stipulacea G.Don
  • Nauclea undulata Roxb.
  • Nauclea wallichiana R.Br. ex G.Don
  • Platanocarpum cordatum (Roxb.) Korth.
  • Sarcocephalus annamensis Dubard & Eberh.

and 13 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.