Planchonella obovata(R.Br.) Pierre

yellow-boxwood

WFO wfo-0000274204 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Planchonella obovata, photographed by Carman Chew
fig. a Carman Chew, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-18 / obs. 198601127
Planchonella obovata, photographed by 葉子
fig. b 葉子, CC0 1.0 / obs. 190269760
Planchonella obovata, photographed by 呂一起(Lyu yi-chi)
fig. c 呂一起(Lyu yi-chi), CC BY 4.0 / obs. 165248043
Planchonella obovata, photographed by Samuel Lee
fig. d Samuel Lee, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 163051304
Planchonella obovata, photographed by Samuel Lee
fig. e Samuel Lee, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 163058462
Planchonella obovata, photographed by 葉子
fig. f 葉子, CC0 1.0 / obs. 117439575
Planchonella obovata, photographed by 呂一起(Lyu yi-chi)
fig. g 呂一起(Lyu yi-chi), CC BY 4.0 / obs. 108473323
Planchonella obovata, photographed by 葉子
fig. h 葉子, CC0 1.0 / obs. 105019659

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 27 botanical countries

Regions where Planchonella obovata is native: Seychelles, Hainan, Kazan-retto, Nansei-shoto, Ogasawara-shoto, Taiwan, Andaman Is., Bismarck Archipelago, Borneo, Cambodia, Jawa, Lesser Sunda Is., Malaya, Maluku, Myanmar, New Guinea, Nicobar Is., Philippines, Solomon Is., Sulawesi, Sumatera, Thailand, Vietnam, Queensland, Caroline Is., Marianas, Santa Cruz Is. HainanTaiwanBismarck ArchipelagoBorneoCambodiaJawaLesser Sunda Is.MalayaMalukuMyanmarNew GuineaPhilippinesSolomon Is.SulawesiSumateraThailandVietnamQueensland SeychellesNansei-shotoAndaman Is.Nicobar Is.Caroline Is.Marianas
Native distribution of Planchonella obovata, 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. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Andaman Is. AND ASIA-TROPICAL
Bismarck Archipelago BIS
Borneo BOR
Cambodia CBD
Jawa JAW
Lesser Sunda Is. LSI
Malaya MLY
Maluku MOL
Myanmar MYA
New Guinea NWG
Nicobar Is. NCB
Philippines PHI
Solomon Is. SOL
Sulawesi SUL
Sumatera SUM
Thailand THA
Vietnam VIE
Hainan CHH ASIA-TEMPERATE
Kazan-retto KZN
Nansei-shoto NNS
Ogasawara-shoto OGA
Taiwan TAI
Caroline Is. CRL PACIFIC
Marianas MRN
Santa Cruz Is. SCZ
Seychelles SEY AFRICA
Queensland QLD AUSTRALASIA

Not drawn on the map: Kazan-retto, Ogasawara-shoto, Santa Cruz Is.. We hold no public-domain boundary for these regions, so they are listed rather than guessed at.

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 513 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 14.0 °C 18.6 °C 25.0 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 27.5 °C 28.7 °C 30.2 °C
Annual rainfall 1,844 mm 2,623 mm 3,893 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 89 mm 494 mm 797 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 513 research-grade observations of Planchonella obovata 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 58 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.

  • Achras obovata F.Muell. ex Benth.
  • Chrysophyllum acuminatum Bojer
  • Chrysophyllum obovatum Wall. ex A.DC.
  • Hormogyne cochinchinensis Dubard
  • Planchonella argentea Pierre
  • Planchonella attenuata (A.DC.) Pierre
  • Planchonella bancana (Burck) Pierre
  • Planchonella chrysophylla (de Vriese) Pierre
  • Planchonella clarkeana R.Kumari & Thoth.
  • Planchonella cochinchinensis Dubard
  • Planchonella ferruginea (Hook. & Arn.) Pierre
  • Planchonella glabra (Ridl.) H.J.Lam
  • Planchonella indica Pierre
  • Planchonella javensis (Burck) Pierre
  • Planchonella kingiana R.Kumari & Thoth.
  • Planchonella kingiana var. andamanica R.Kumari & Thoth.
  • Planchonella lanceolata (Burck) Pierre
  • Planchonella merrillii Dubard
  • Planchonella nodosa (Burck) Pierre
  • Planchonella obovata
  • Planchonella obovata var. dubia (Koidz. ex Nakai) Hatus.
  • Planchonella philippensis Dubard
  • Planchonella polymorpha Dubard
  • Pouteria clarkeana (R.Kumari & Thoth.) R.Kumari & Thoth.

and 34 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. USDA PLANTS Database. common name, checklist symbol PLOB5. public domain. 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.