Premna serratifoliaL.

malbau

WFO wfo-0000282838 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 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.

Premna serratifolia, photographed by Dana Lee Ling
fig. a Dana Lee Ling, CC0 1.0 / 2019-04-22 / obs. 35446230

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.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
The New York Botanical Garden
Accession
04991738
Filed as
Premna serratifolia L.
Det. by
G. M. Plunkett 2021-01-28
Collected
G. M. Plunkett 2016-12-04
Origin
VU
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 64 botanical countries

Regions where Premna serratifolia is native: Aldabra, Chagos Archipelago, Comoros, Kenya, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Mozambique Channel Is., Réunion, Rodrigues, Seychelles, Tanzania, China Southeast, Hainan, Nansei-shoto, Taiwan, Andaman Is., Assam, Bangladesh, Bismarck Archipelago, Borneo, Cambodia, Christmas I., Cocos (Keeling) Is., India, Jawa, Laccadive Is., Lesser Sunda Is., Malaya, Maldives, Maluku, Myanmar, New Guinea, Nicobar Is., Philippines, Solomon Is., South China Sea, Sri Lanka, Sulawesi, Sumatera, Thailand, Vietnam, Northern Territory, Queensland, Western Australia, Caroline Is., Cook Is., Fiji, Gilbert Is., Marianas, Marquesas, Marshall Is., Nauru, New Caledonia, Niue, Pitcairn Is., Samoa, Santa Cruz Is., Society Is., Tonga, Tuamotu, Tubuai Is., Tuvalu, Vanuatu KenyaMadagascarMozambiqueTanzaniaChina SoutheastHainanTaiwanAssamBangladeshBismarck ArchipelagoBorneoCambodiaIndiaJawaLesser Sunda Is.MalayaMalukuMyanmarNew GuineaPhilippinesSolomon Is.Sri LankaSulawesiSumateraThailandVietnamNorthern TerritoryQueenslandWestern AustraliaFijiNew Caledonia AldabraChagos ArchipelagoComorosMauritiusMozambique Channel Is.RéunionRodriguesSeychellesNansei-shotoAndaman Is.Christmas I.Laccadive Is.MaldivesNicobar Is.South China SeaCaroline Is.Cook Is.MarianasMarquesasMarshall Is.NauruNiuePitcairn Is.SamoaSociety Is.TongaTuamotuTubuai Is.TuvaluVanuatu
Native distribution of Premna serratifolia, 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
Assam ASS
Bangladesh BAN
Bismarck Archipelago BIS
Borneo BOR
Cambodia CBD
Christmas I. XMS
Cocos (Keeling) Is. CKI
India IND
Jawa JAW
Laccadive Is. LDV
Lesser Sunda Is. LSI
Malaya MLY
Maldives MDV
Maluku MOL
Myanmar MYA
New Guinea NWG
Nicobar Is. NCB
Philippines PHI
Solomon Is. SOL
South China Sea SCS
Sri Lanka SRL
Sulawesi SUL
Sumatera SUM
Thailand THA
Vietnam VIE
Caroline Is. CRL PACIFIC
Cook Is. COO
Fiji FIJ
Gilbert Is. GIL
Marianas MRN
Marquesas MRQ
Marshall Is. MRS
Nauru NRU
New Caledonia NWC
Niue NUE
Pitcairn Is. PIT
Samoa SAM
Santa Cruz Is. SCZ
Society Is. SCI
Tonga TON
Tuamotu TUA
Tubuai Is. TUB
Tuvalu TUV
Vanuatu VAN
Aldabra ALD AFRICA
Chagos Archipelago CGS
Comoros COM
Kenya KEN
Madagascar MDG
Mauritius MAU
Mozambique MOZ
Mozambique Channel Is. MCI
Réunion REU
Rodrigues ROD
Seychelles SEY
Tanzania TAN
China Southeast CHS ASIA-TEMPERATE
Hainan CHH
Nansei-shoto NNS
Taiwan TAI
Northern Territory NTA AUSTRALASIA
Queensland QLD
Western Australia WAU

Not drawn on the map: Cocos (Keeling) Is., Gilbert Is., 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.

Flowering 59 in flower of 124 examined

Proportion of examined Premna serratifolia in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 1 8 13% 2% to 47%
Feb 1 5 20% 4% to 62%
Mar 4 10 40% 17% to 69%
Apr 6 9 67% 35% to 88%
May 10 21 48% 28% to 68%
Jun 11 16 69% 44% to 86%
Jul 8 9 89% 56% to 98%
Aug 7 12 58% 32% to 81%
Sep 4 12 33% 14% to 61%
Oct 2 5 40% 12% to 77%
Nov 3 9 33% 12% to 65%
Dec 2 8 25% 7% to 59%

Peak flowering in Jul. Each bar is the share of Premna serratifolia 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. 59 of 124 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 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 1,375 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 13.1 °C 18.9 °C 25.3 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 27.5 °C 29.2 °C 31.2 °C
Annual rainfall 1,248 mm 2,252 mm 3,968 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 49 mm 133 mm 693 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 1,375 research-grade observations of Premna serratifolia 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 102 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.

  • Cornutia corymbosa Burm.f.
  • Gumira abbreviata (Miq.) Kuntze
  • Gumira attenuata (R.Br.) Kuntze
  • Gumira ceramensis (Miq.) Kuntze
  • Gumira cyclophylla (Miq.) Kuntze
  • Gumira dallachyana (Benth.) Kuntze
  • Gumira divaricata (Wall. ex Schauer) Kuntze
  • Gumira domestica Hassk.
  • Gumira foetida (Reinw. ex Blume) Hassk.
  • Gumira integrifolia Hassk.
  • Gumira laevigata (Miq.) Kuntze
  • Gumira limbata (Benth.) Kuntze
  • Gumira nauseosa (Blanco) Kuntze
  • Gumira nitida (K.Schum.) Kuntze
  • Gumira opulifolia (Miq.) Kuntze
  • Gumira punctulata (C.B.Clarke) Kuntze
  • Gumira truncata (Turcz.) Kuntze
  • Premna abbreviata Miq.
  • Premna acuminatissima Merr.
  • Premna angustior (C.B.Clarke) Ridl.
  • Premna arborea Farw.
  • Premna atra Merr.
  • Premna attenuata R.Br.
  • Premna benguetensis C.B.Rob.

and 78 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 PRSE6. 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.