Pourthiaea arguta(Wall. ex Lindl.) Decne.

WFO wfo-0001016665 Accepted WFO 2026-06 4 photographs CC0 / 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.

Pourthiaea arguta, photographed by Jacy Chen
fig. a Jacy Chen, CC BY 4.0 / 2019-06-10 / obs. 135722615
Pourthiaea arguta, photographed by 葉子
fig. b 葉子, CC0 1.0 / obs. 31559409
Pourthiaea arguta, photographed by 葉子
fig. c 葉子, CC0 1.0 / obs. 31559399
Pourthiaea arguta, photographed by 葉子
fig. d 葉子, CC0 1.0 / obs. 31559414

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 13 botanical countries

Regions where Pourthiaea arguta is native: China North-Central, China South-Central, China Southeast, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Tibet, Assam, Bangladesh, East Himalaya, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam China North-CentralChina South-CentralChina SoutheastJapanTaiwanTibetAssamBangladeshEast HimalayaLaosMyanmarVietnam Korea
Native distribution of Pourthiaea arguta, 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
China North-Central CHN ASIA-TEMPERATE
China South-Central CHC
China Southeast CHS
Japan JAP
Korea KOR
Taiwan TAI
Tibet CHT
Assam ASS ASIA-TROPICAL
Bangladesh BAN
East Himalaya EHM
Laos LAO
Myanmar MYA
Vietnam VIE

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 92 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 9.3 °C 12.0 °C 17.9 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 26.8 °C 29.2 °C 30.6 °C
Annual rainfall 1,956 mm 2,739 mm 4,303 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 91 mm 188 mm 732 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 92 research-grade observations of Pourthiaea arguta 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 64 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.

  • Cotoneaster esquirolii H.Lév.
  • Photinia arguta Wall. ex Lindl.
  • Photinia arguta var. hookeri (Decne.) J.E.Vidal
  • Photinia arguta var. latifolia (Hook.f.) Ghora
  • Photinia arguta var. membranacea (Hook.f.) Ghora
  • Photinia arguta var. parvifolia (Hook.f.) Ghora
  • Photinia beauverdiana C.K.Schneid.
  • Photinia beauverdiana var. brevifolia Cardot
  • Photinia beauverdiana var. lohfauensis F.P.Metcalf
  • Photinia beauverdiana var. notabilis (C.K.Schneid.) Rehder & E.H.Wilson
  • Photinia bergerae C.K.Schneid.
  • Photinia birmanensis C.K.Schneid.
  • Photinia brevipetiolata Cardot
  • Photinia callosa Chun ex T.T.Yu & K.C.Kuan
  • Photinia cavaleriei H.Lév.
  • Photinia dabeishanensis M.B.Deng & G.Yao
  • Photinia esquirolii (H.Lév.) Rehder
  • Photinia fauriei Cardot
  • Photinia formosana (Hance) Koidz.
  • Photinia hookeri (Decne.) Merr.
  • Photinia kudoi Masam.
  • Photinia lucida (Decne.) C.K.Schneid.
  • Photinia magnoliifolia Z.H.Chen
  • Photinia moiorum (A.Chev.) J.E.Vidal

and 40 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. 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.