Species
+

Aucuba japonica Thunb.

Aucuba, Spotted laurel, Japanese laurel, Variegated laurel, Japanese Laurel, Japanese acuba, Japanese aucuba

Climate known 49 photographs
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Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Aucuba japonica, commonly called spotted laurel, Japanese laurel, Japanese aucuba or gold dust plant (U.S.), is a shrub native to rich forest soils of moist valleys, thickets, by streams and near shaded moist rocks in China, Korea, and Japan. This is the species of Aucuba commonly seen in gardens - often in variegated form. The leaves are opposite, broad lanceolate, 5–8 cm (2.0–3.1 in) long and 2–5 cm (0.79–1.97 in) wide. Aucuba japonica are dioecious. More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Aucuba japonica”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Aucuba

Aucuba is a genus of three to ten species of flowering plants, now placed in the family Garryaceae, although formerly classified in the Aucubaceae or Cornaceae.

Text from Wikipedia, “Aucuba”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Garryaceae
Described by
Thunb.
Native to
China Southeast, Japan, Korea +2
Wild records
537 in range· 414 open

At a glance

Warmest month
28°C
Aug, mean day; nights 22 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
1930mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Jul 257 mm (CHELSA)
Light
15–34DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Rain rule: a summer growing season, March and May to October in the northern hemisphere (March and May to October at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 1930 mm a year, wettest July at 257 mm, driest December at 77 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 15 to 34 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -1.6 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: a summer growing season, March and May to October in the northern hemisphere (March and May to October at the habitat, northern).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads a summer growing season: 70% of the year's rain (1404 mm of 1930 mm) falls in March and May to October, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 18.9 °C against a yearly mean of 14.1 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: November to April and September.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 1930 mm a year, wettest July at 257 mm, driest December at 77 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1930 mm a year at the habitat, 1404 mm of it March and May to October. Wettest month July at 257 mm, driest December at 77 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1448 mm to 3239 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 15 to 34 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 15 to 34 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 11, the highest 90th-percentile month 36).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor -1.6 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is -1.6 °C, the absolute minimum -5.2 °C, about 24 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 33.2 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -1.2 °C in January (across the envelope cells -8.4 °C to 4.6 °C), warmest day 27.7 °C in August (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -1.6 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 59 to 67% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 6 °C in Jan to 28 °C in Aug; mean night from -1 °C in Jan to 22 °C in Aug. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 1930 mm of rain a year, most in Jul. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 436 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -5.2 °C and the 99th-percentile day 33.2 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-10°10°20°30°40°frost33.2° 99th-percentile day (undated)-5.2° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400500mm rainDLI 15–34RH 59–67 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 436 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C6 / -1–107 / -0–1110 / 4–1416 / 10–1820 / 15–2223 / 19–2526 / 23–2828 / 24–3024 / 21–2619 / 15–2114 / 8–179 / 2–12
Night °C-1 / -8–5-1 / -8–52 / -4–77 / 1–1212 / 7–1617 / 12–2021 / 16–2322 / 18–2419 / 14–2212 / 7–177 / 1–122 / -5–7
Rain mm88 / 45–281100 / 51–206142 / 86–225138 / 103–230166 / 123–270217 / 149–419257 / 154–403209 / 137–343233 / 179–358180 / 111–259123 / 73–29377 / 44–288
DLI16 / 13–1821 / 18–2327 / 25–2933 / 31–3534 / 32–3632 / 28–3532 / 29–3533 / 29–3425 / 23–2821 / 19–2416 / 13–1915 / 11–17
RH %59 / 54–6759 / 54–6659 / 56–6359 / 57–6262 / 59–6465 / 63–6967 / 65–7166 / 63–6964 / 62–6861 / 58–6560 / 57–6559 / 55–66

Each figure is the median across the 436 grid cells holding the 511 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 1097:6339 (35.125, 136.975). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -5.2 °C, 1st-percentile night -1.6 °C, 99th-percentile day 33.2 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 436 distinct grid cells holding the 511 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1097:6339 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 35.00_136.875, lapse-corrected -46 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 33 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeChina Southeast, Japan, Korea, Nansei-shoto, Taiwan· introduced: Great Britain, Ireland, Austria, Germany, Portugal, Spain, China South-Central, Washington, North Carolina
Kew's description“shrub” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker35.701, 139.476 · in the densest population, 319 records (59% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 537 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 414 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 24 km away. 951 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 26 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population inside the densest 2° block of the 537 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Aucuba japonicaAucuba japonicaAucuba japonicaAucuba japonicaAucuba japonicaAucuba japonicaAucuba japonicaAucuba japonica

Photographs: (c) Jose Castro, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) 潘立傑 LICHIEH_PAN, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); no rights reserved · CC0 (3); (c) WATANABE Hitoshi 渡辺仁, some rights reserved (CC BY).

Photographs: iNaturalist and Wikimedia Commons did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Aucuba japonica, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Source-to-sink transport of sugar and regulation by environmental factors
Rémi Lemoine, Sylvain La Camera, Rossitza Atanassova, Fabienne Dédaldéchamp (2013) · Frontiers in Plant Science
From algae to angiosperms–inferring the phylogeny of green plants (Viridiplantae) from 360 plastid genomes
Brad R. Ruhfel, Matthew A. Gitzendanner, Pamela S. Soltis, Pamela S. Soltis (2014) · BMC Evolutionary Biology
Temperature acclimation of photosynthesis: mechanisms involved in the changes in temperature dependence of photosynthetic rate
Kouki Hikosaka, Kazumasa Ishikawa, Almaz Borjigidai, Onno Muller (2005) · Journal of Experimental Botany
Phylogenetics of Flowering Plants Based on Combined Analysis of Plastid atpB and rbcL Gene Sequences
Vincent Savolainen, Mark W. Chase, Sara B. Hoot, Cynthia M. Morton (2000) · Systematic Biology
The seco-iridoid pathway from Catharanthus roseus
Karel Miettinen, Lemeng Dong, Nicolas Navrot, Thomas Schneider (2014) · Nature Communications
Significance of galactinol and raffinose family oligosaccharide synthesis in plants
Sonali Sengupta, Sritama Mukherjee, Papri Basak, Arun Lahiri Majumder (2015) · Frontiers in Plant Science
Multifunctional fructans and raffinose family oligosaccharides
Wim Van den Ende (2013) · Frontiers in Plant Science
Berichte der Deutschen Botanischen Gesellschaft
Deutsche Botanische Gesellschaft. (1914) · Biodiversity Heritage Library (Smithsonian Institution)
Integrated management of damping-off diseases. A review
Jay Ram Lamichhane, Carolyne Dürr, André Aguiar Schwanck, Marie‐Hélène Robin (2017) · Agronomy for Sustainable Development

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zam
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive)
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 114 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.