Sonneratia albaSm.

WFO wfo-0001140430 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Sonneratia alba, photographed by Dana Lee Ling
fig. a Dana Lee Ling, CC0 1.0 / 2022-06-11 / obs. 205064958

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 39 botanical countries

Regions where Sonneratia alba is native: Aldabra, Comoros, Kenya, Madagascar, Mozambique, Seychelles, Somalia, Tanzania, Hainan, Nansei-shoto, Andaman Is., Bangladesh, Bismarck Archipelago, Borneo, Cambodia, India, Jawa, Lesser Sunda Is., Malaya, Maldives, Maluku, Myanmar, New Guinea, Nicobar Is., Philippines, Solomon Is., Sri Lanka, Sulawesi, Sumatera, Thailand, Vietnam, Northern Territory, Queensland, Western Australia, Caroline Is., Gilbert Is., Marshall Is., New Caledonia, Vanuatu KenyaMadagascarMozambiqueSomaliaTanzaniaHainanBangladeshBismarck ArchipelagoBorneoCambodiaIndiaJawaLesser Sunda Is.MalayaMalukuMyanmarNew GuineaPhilippinesSolomon Is.Sri LankaSulawesiSumateraThailandVietnamNorthern TerritoryQueenslandWestern AustraliaNew Caledonia AldabraComorosSeychellesNansei-shotoAndaman Is.MaldivesNicobar Is.Caroline Is.Marshall Is.Vanuatu
Native distribution of Sonneratia alba, 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
Bismarck Archipelago BIS
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
Philippines PHI
Solomon Is. SOL
Sri Lanka SRL
Sulawesi SUL
Sumatera SUM
Thailand THA
Vietnam VIE
Aldabra ALD AFRICA
Comoros COM
Kenya KEN
Madagascar MDG
Mozambique MOZ
Seychelles SEY
Somalia SOM
Tanzania TAN
Caroline Is. CRL PACIFIC
Gilbert Is. GIL
Marshall Is. MRS
New Caledonia NWC
Vanuatu VAN
Northern Territory NTA AUSTRALASIA
Queensland QLD
Western Australia WAU
Hainan CHH ASIA-TEMPERATE
Nansei-shoto NNS

Not drawn on the map: Gilbert Is.. We hold no public-domain boundary for this region, so it is 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 54 in flower of 107 examined

Proportion of examined Sonneratia alba in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 2 6 33% 10% to 70%
Feb 3 4 too few examined
Mar 5 8 63% 31% to 86%
Apr 7 17 41% 22% to 64%
May 5 8 63% 31% to 86%
Jun 2 9 22% 6% to 55%
Jul 4 7 57% 25% to 84%
Aug 14 23 61% 41% to 78%
Sep 2 4 too few examined
Oct 5 9 56% 27% to 81%
Nov 0 3 too few examined
Dec 5 9 56% 27% to 81%

Peak flowering in Mar. Each bar is the share of Sonneratia alba 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. 54 of 107 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 3 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. 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.

Also published as 9 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.

  • Blatti alba (Sm.) Kuntze
  • Blatti leucantha (Montrouz.) Kuntze
  • Blatti pagatpat (Blanco) Nied.
  • Chiratia leucantha Montrouz.
  • Sonneratia acida var. mossambicensis (Klotzsch) Mattei
  • Sonneratia alba var. iriomotensis (Masam.) Masam.
  • Sonneratia iriomotensis Masam.
  • Sonneratia mossambicensis Klotzsch
  • Sonneratia pagatpat Blanco

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.