Persea palustris(Raf.) Sarg.

swamp bay

WFO wfo-0001071163 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Persea palustris, photographed by Steve Taylor
fig. a Steve Taylor, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-14 / obs. 197631164
Persea palustris, photographed by Michelle W. （鍾偉瑋）
fig. b Michelle W. （鍾偉瑋）, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 194488657
Persea palustris, photographed by Michelle W. （鍾偉瑋）
fig. c Michelle W. （鍾偉瑋）, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 194604433
Persea palustris, photographed by Michelle W. （鍾偉瑋）
fig. d Michelle W. （鍾偉瑋）, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 186538136
Persea palustris, photographed by Michelle W. （鍾偉瑋）
fig. e Michelle W. （鍾偉瑋）, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 186354990
Persea palustris, photographed by Dennis Vollmar
fig. f Dennis Vollmar, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 180577260
Persea palustris, photographed by Ryan Watson
fig. g Ryan Watson, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 163127885
Persea palustris, photographed by Mike Duran
fig. h Mike Duran, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 162005583

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.

Where it actually grows measured, from 1,992 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 1.5 °C 8.1 °C 16.4 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 27.5 °C 31.0 °C 32.7 °C
Annual rainfall 1,189 mm 1,394 mm 1,727 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 134 mm 246 mm 346 mm

It is found where winters are cool but frost is light or absent. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 1,992 research-grade observations of Persea palustris 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 Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.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 12 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.

  • Borbonia pubescens (Pursh) House
  • Laurus carolinensis var. pubescens Pursh
  • Persea borbonia f. pubescens (Pursh) Fernald
  • Persea borbonia subsp. pubescens (Pursh) A.E.Murray
  • Persea borbonia var. pubescens (Pursh) Little
  • Persea carolinensis var. palustris (Raf.) Chapm.
  • Persea caroliniensis f. pubescens (Pursh) Mez
  • Persea caroliniensis var. pubescens (Pursh) Meisn.
  • Persea palustris f. laevifolia Fernald
  • Persea pubescens (Pursh) Sarg.
  • Tamala palustris Raf.
  • Tamala pubescens (Pursh) Small

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.

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. It has no native range either: Kew's checklist does not cover this taxon.