Phyllanthus emblicaL.

emblic

WFO wfo-0000270932 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Phyllanthus emblica, photographed by Paulmathi Vinod
fig. a Paulmathi Vinod, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-07-18 / obs. 145345347
Phyllanthus emblica, photographed by Ramnarayan K
fig. b Ramnarayan K, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 112037505
Phyllanthus emblica, photographed by Dinesh Valke
fig. c Dinesh Valke, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 119094047
Phyllanthus emblica, photographed by Yj
fig. d Yj, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 17115895
Phyllanthus emblica, photographed by Manoj Karingamadathil
fig. e Manoj Karingamadathil, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 156438428
Phyllanthus emblica, photographed by portioid
fig. f portioid, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 15536331
Phyllanthus emblica, photographed by Siddarth Machado
fig. g Siddarth Machado, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 42742951
Phyllanthus emblica, photographed by Ong Jyh Seng
fig. h Ong Jyh Seng, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 27339557

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 21 botanical countries

Regions where Phyllanthus emblica is native: China South-Central, China Southeast, Hainan, Taiwan, Assam, Bangladesh, Borneo, Cambodia, East Himalaya, India, Jawa, Laos, Lesser Sunda Is., Malaya, Myanmar, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Sumatera, Thailand, Vietnam, West Himalaya China South-CentralChina SoutheastHainanTaiwanAssamBangladeshBorneoCambodiaEast HimalayaIndiaJawaLaosLesser Sunda Is.MalayaMyanmarPakistanSri LankaSumateraThailandVietnamWest Himalaya
Native distribution of Phyllanthus emblica, 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
Assam ASS ASIA-TROPICAL
Bangladesh BAN
Borneo BOR
Cambodia CBD
East Himalaya EHM
India IND
Jawa JAW
Laos LAO
Lesser Sunda Is. LSI
Malaya MLY
Myanmar MYA
Pakistan PAK
Sri Lanka SRL
Sumatera SUM
Thailand THA
Vietnam VIE
West Himalaya WHM
China South-Central CHC ASIA-TEMPERATE
China Southeast CHS
Hainan CHH
Taiwan TAI

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 39 in flower of 129 examined

Peak flowering in Mar. Each bar is the share of Phyllanthus emblica 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. 39 of 129 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 3 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. 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 864 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 6.8 °C 13.2 °C 22.5 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 27.8 °C 31.4 °C 40.3 °C
Annual rainfall 715 mm 1,967 mm 3,056 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 5 mm 55 mm 163 mm

It is barely found anywhere that freezes. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 864 research-grade observations of Phyllanthus emblica 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 13 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.

  • Cicca emblica (L.) Kurz
  • Cicca macrocarpa Kurz
  • Diasperus emblica (L.) Kuntze
  • Diasperus pomiferus (Hook.f.) Kuntze
  • Dichelactina nodicaulis Hance
  • Emblica arborea Raf.
  • Emblica officinalis Gaertn.
  • Phyllanthus glomeratus Roxb. ex Wall.
  • Phyllanthus mairei H.Lév.
  • Phyllanthus mimosifolius Salisb.
  • Phyllanthus pomifer Hook.f.
  • Phyllanthus pomiferus Hook.f.
  • Phyllanthus taxifolius D.Don

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.