Syzygium polyanthum(Wight) Walp.

Indonesian bay leaf

WFO wfo-0000319226 Accepted WFO 2026-06 6 photographs CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–f · 4 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 4 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.

Syzygium polyanthum, photographed by Ong Jyh Seng
fig. a Ong Jyh Seng, CC BY-SA 4.0 / 2021-03-23 / obs. 117044539
Syzygium polyanthum, photographed by Ong Jyh Seng
fig. b Ong Jyh Seng, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 109446648
Syzygium polyanthum, photographed by Ong Jyh Seng
fig. c Ong Jyh Seng, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 32974501
Syzygium polyanthum, photographed by Cheongweei Gan
fig. d Cheongweei Gan, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 63652997
Syzygium polyanthum, photographed by Cheongweei Gan
fig. e Cheongweei Gan, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 63652999
Syzygium polyanthum, photographed by Cheongweei Gan
fig. f Cheongweei Gan, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 63653002

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
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Accession
K000171121
Filed as
Syzygium polyanthum (Wight) Walp.
Det. by
Ashton, Peter
Collected
Laman, T.G., et al.
Origin
ID
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 13 botanical countries

Regions where Syzygium polyanthum is native: Andaman Is., Borneo, Cambodia, Jawa, Laos, Lesser Sunda Is., Malaya, Myanmar, Nicobar Is., Philippines, Sumatera, Thailand, Vietnam BorneoCambodiaJawaLaosLesser Sunda Is.MalayaMyanmarPhilippinesSumateraThailandVietnam Andaman Is.Nicobar Is.
Native distribution of Syzygium polyanthum, 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
Borneo BOR
Cambodia CBD
Jawa JAW
Laos LAO
Lesser Sunda Is. LSI
Malaya MLY
Myanmar MYA
Nicobar Is. NCB
Philippines PHI
Sumatera SUM
Thailand THA
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 49 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 19.7 °C 23.2 °C 24.7 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 28.8 °C 29.6 °C 31.3 °C
Annual rainfall 2,203 mm 2,501 mm 3,640 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 145 mm 504 mm 662 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 49 research-grade observations of Syzygium polyanthum 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 17 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.

  • Eugenia atropunctata C.B.Rob.
  • Eugenia holmanii Elmer
  • Eugenia junghuhniana Miq.
  • Eugenia lambii Elmer
  • Eugenia lucidula Miq.
  • Eugenia microbotrya Miq.
  • Eugenia nitida Duthie
  • Eugenia pamatensis Miq.
  • Eugenia polyantha Wight
  • Eugenia polyantha var. sessilis M.R.Hend.
  • Eugenia resinosa Gagnep.
  • Myrtus cymosa Blume
  • Syzygium cymosum Korth.
  • Syzygium micranthum Blume ex Miq.
  • Syzygium microbotryum (Miq.) Masam.
  • Syzygium pamatense (Miq.) Masam.
  • Syzygium polyanthum var. sessile (M.R.Hend.) I.M.Turner

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.