Sideroxylon tenaxL.

tough bully

WFO wfo-0000311012 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Sideroxylon tenax, photographed by Ryan Watson
fig. a Ryan Watson, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-04-19 / obs. 189259000
Sideroxylon tenax, photographed by Ryan Watson
fig. b Ryan Watson, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 178627168
Sideroxylon tenax, photographed by Valerie Anderson
fig. c Valerie Anderson, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 95749245
Sideroxylon tenax, photographed by mark-groeneveld
fig. d mark-groeneveld, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 65692707
Sideroxylon tenax, photographed by Jesse Rorabaugh
fig. e Jesse Rorabaugh, CC0 1.0 / obs. 59965685
Sideroxylon tenax, photographed by Brandon Corder
fig. f Brandon Corder, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 202216373
Sideroxylon tenax, photographed by Brandon Corder
fig. g Brandon Corder, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 201107593
Sideroxylon tenax, photographed by Brandon Corder
fig. h Brandon Corder, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 201107919

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 4 botanical countries

Regions where Sideroxylon tenax is native: Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina FloridaGeorgiaNorth CarolinaSouth Carolina
Native distribution of Sideroxylon tenax, 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
Florida FLA NORTHERN AMERICA
Georgia GEO
North Carolina NCA
South Carolina SCA

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.

Also published as 12 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.

  • Bumelia chrysophylloides P.Watson
  • Bumelia chrysophylloides (Michx.) Pursh
  • Bumelia lacuum Small
  • Bumelia tenax (L.) Willd.
  • Chrysophyllum carolinense Jacq.
  • Chrysophyllum glabrum Juss. ex Lam.
  • Lyciodes tenax (L.) Kuntze
  • Sclerocladus tenax (L.) Raf.
  • Sclerozus tenax (L.) Raf.
  • Sideroxylon carolinense Sarg.
  • Sideroxylon chrysophylloides Michx.
  • Sideroxylon sericeum Walter

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.