Rhizophora mucronataPoir.

MangrovemangroveAsiatic mangrove

WFO wfo-0001131556 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Rhizophora mucronata, photographed by S.MORE
fig. a S.MORE, CC0 1.0 / 2021-08-21 / obs. 152925115

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 47 botanical countries

Regions where Rhizophora mucronata is native: Aldabra, Cape Provinces, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Kenya, KwaZulu-Natal, Mauritius, Mozambique, Mozambique Channel Is., Rodrigues, Seychelles, Somalia, Sudan-South Sudan, Tanzania, Gulf States, Iran, Nansei-shoto, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Yemen, Andaman Is., Bangladesh, Borneo, Cambodia, India, Jawa, Lesser Sunda Is., Malaya, Maldives, Maluku, Myanmar, New Guinea, Nicobar Is., Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Sulawesi, Sumatera, Thailand, Vietnam, Northern Territory, Queensland, Caroline Is., Marianas, Marshall Is. Cape ProvincesDjiboutiEgyptEritreaKenyaKwaZulu-NatalMozambiqueSomaliaSudan-South SudanTanzaniaGulf StatesIranSaudi ArabiaTaiwanYemenBangladeshBorneoCambodiaIndiaJawaLesser Sunda Is.MalayaMalukuMyanmarNew GuineaPakistanPhilippinesSri LankaSulawesiSumateraThailandVietnamNorthern TerritoryQueensland AldabraComorosMauritiusMozambique Channel Is.RodriguesSeychellesNansei-shotoAndaman Is.MaldivesNicobar Is.Caroline Is.MarianasMarshall Is.
Native distribution of Rhizophora mucronata, 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
Bangladesh BAN
Borneo BOR
Cambodia CBD
India IND
Jawa JAW
Lesser Sunda Is. LSI
Malaya MLY
Maldives MDV
Maluku MOL
Myanmar MYA
New Guinea NWG
Nicobar Is. NCB
Pakistan PAK
Philippines PHI
Sri Lanka SRL
Sulawesi SUL
Sumatera SUM
Thailand THA
Vietnam VIE
Aldabra ALD AFRICA
Cape Provinces CPP
Comoros COM
Djibouti DJI
Egypt EGY
Eritrea ERI
Kenya KEN
KwaZulu-Natal NAT
Mauritius MAU
Mozambique MOZ
Mozambique Channel Is. MCI
Rodrigues ROD
Seychelles SEY
Somalia SOM
Sudan-South Sudan SUD
Tanzania TAN
Gulf States GST ASIA-TEMPERATE
Iran IRN
Nansei-shoto NNS
Saudi Arabia SAU
Taiwan TAI
Yemen YEM
Caroline Is. CRL PACIFIC
Marianas MRN
Marshall Is. MRS
Northern Territory NTA AUSTRALASIA
Queensland QLD

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 129 examined

Proportion of examined Rhizophora mucronata in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 3 15 20% 7% to 45%
Feb 4 10 40% 17% to 69%
Mar 11 17 65% 41% to 83%
Apr 13 21 62% 41% to 79%
May 4 7 57% 25% to 84%
Jun 0 9 0% 0% to 30%
Jul 4 9 44% 19% to 73%
Aug 4 8 50% 22% to 78%
Sep 3 7 43% 16% to 75%
Oct 3 7 43% 16% to 75%
Nov 7 11 64% 35% to 85%
Dec 3 8 38% 14% to 69%

Peak flowering in Mar. Each bar is the share of Rhizophora mucronata 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 129 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 601 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 14.3 °C 22.9 °C 25.2 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 26.8 °C 29.6 °C 32.7 °C
Annual rainfall 898 mm 1,855 mm 3,432 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 2 mm 122 mm 499 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 601 research-grade observations of Rhizophora mucronata 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 10 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.

  • Mangium candelarium Rumphius
  • Rhizophora candelaria Wight & Arn.
  • Rhizophora latifolia Miq.
  • Rhizophora longissima Blanco
  • Rhizophora macrorhiza Griff.
  • Rhizophora macrorrhiza Griff.
  • Rhizophora mucronata f. reducta Hochr.
  • Rhizophora mucronata var. alokii Ragavan
  • Rhizophora mucronata var. typica A.Schimp.
  • Rhizophora rugens Ehrenb. ex Schweinf.

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.