Newbouldia laevis(P.Beauv.) Seem. ex Bureau

WFO wfo-0001214884 Accepted WFO 2026-06 4 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–d · 2 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 2 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.

Newbouldia laevis, photographed by Julien Renoult
fig. a Julien Renoult, CC BY 4.0 / 2019-03-01 / obs. 59904260
Newbouldia laevis, photographed by Denis Bastianelli
fig. b Denis Bastianelli, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 179306927
Newbouldia laevis, photographed by Denis Bastianelli
fig. c Denis Bastianelli, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 179306963
Newbouldia laevis, photographed by Julien Renoult
fig. d Julien Renoult, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 59904266

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 19 botanical countries

Regions where Newbouldia laevis is native: Angola, Benin, Burkina, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, DR Congo, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Gulf of Guinea Is., Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal, Togo AngolaBeninBurkinaCameroonCentral African RepublicCongoDR CongoGabonGambiaGhanaGuineaGuinea-BissauGulf of Guinea Is.Ivory CoastLiberiaMauritaniaNigeriaSenegalTogo
Native distribution of Newbouldia laevis, 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
Cameroon CMN
Central African Republic CAF
Congo CON
DR Congo ZAI
Gabon GAB
Gambia GAM
Ghana GHA
Guinea GUI
Guinea-Bissau GNB
Gulf of Guinea Is. GGI
Ivory Coast IVO
Liberia LBR
Mauritania MTN
Nigeria NGA
Senegal SEN
Togo TOG

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 33 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 18.3 °C 20.1 °C 23.8 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 28.4 °C 32.1 °C 37.2 °C
Annual rainfall 771 mm 1,202 mm 2,897 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 1 mm 6 mm 59 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 33 research-grade observations of Newbouldia laevis 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 7 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.

  • Bignonia glandulosa Schum.
  • Newbouldia pentandra (Hook.) Seem.
  • Spathodea adenantha G.Don
  • Spathodea jenischii Sond.
  • Spathodea laevis P.Beauv.
  • Spathodea pentandra Hook.
  • Spathodea speciosa Brongn.

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. 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.