Species
+

Dracaena angustifolia (Medik.) Roxb.

Suji

Climate known 93 photographs Tropical foliage plant
Add one to my plants Sow seed

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

Dracaena angustifolia is a species of Asian tropical forest under-storey plants in the family Asparagaceae; no subspecies are listed in the Catalogue of Life.

Text from Wikipedia, “Dracaena angustifolia”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

Family
Asparagaceae
Described by
(Medik.) Roxb.
Native to
China South-Central, Hainan, Assam +20
Wild records
1073 in range· 985 open

At a glance

Warmest month
29°C
Apr, mean day; nights 24 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
2083mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Jan 349 mm (CHELSA)
Light
31–40DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Grouped as a tropical foliage plant by the genus Dracaena, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a sharp rainy season, November to April at the habitat (not shifted); the temperature curve is flat (2.1 °C of range), so no growing season is inferred. Habitat rain 2083 mm a year, wettest January at 349 mm, driest August at 58 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 31 to 40 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 20.4 °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.

Also known as Cordyline fruticosa Göpp.; Cordyline rumphii Hook.; Dracaena angustifolia subsp. angustior (Ridl.) Jankalski; Dracaena angustifolia subsp. honoriae F.M.Bailey; Dracaena angustifolia var. angustior (Ridl.) Jankalski and 24 more.

Cultivation

Grouped as a tropical foliage plant by the genus Dracaena, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). The table supplies one figure for this group, a conventional minimum for the cold floor, and no prose.

Its year Rain rule: a sharp rainy season, November to April at the habitat (not shifted); the temperature curve is flat (2.1 °C of range), so no growing season is inferred.

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

The rain rule reads a sharp season: 70% of the year's rain (1550 mm of 2083 mm) falls in November to April. The temperature curve is flat, 2.1 °C between the warmest and coldest month, so the growing-season rule does not infer a growing season from it. Months are the habitat's, southern hemisphere; with a flat temperature curve there is no season to reverse, so they are not shifted for a collection elsewhere.

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 2083 mm a year, wettest January at 349 mm, driest August at 58 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

2083 mm a year at the habitat, 1550 mm of it November to April. Wettest month January at 349 mm, driest August at 58 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1476 mm to 3602 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, southern 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: 31 to 40 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 31 to 40 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 26, the highest 90th-percentile month 45).

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 20.4 °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 20.4 °C, the absolute minimum 17.0 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 34.7 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 21.9 °C in July (across the envelope cells 18.5 °C to 25.0 °C), warmest day 29.1 °C in April (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 20.4 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER); the archetype table's minimum for a tropical foliage plant, 12 °C, is lower and does not raise it.

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, and the archetype table's group minimum where that is higher. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 63 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 28 °C in Jul to 29 °C in Apr; mean night from 22 °C in Jul to 25 °C in Jan. The cold quarter, Jun to Aug, is the three months around the coldest night. 2083 mm of rain a year, most in Jan. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 701 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was 17.0 °C and the 99th-percentile day 34.7 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.15°20°25°30°35°40°34.7° 99th-percentile day (undated)17.0° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400500mm rainDLI 31–40RH 63–67 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 701 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 °C29 / 25–3129 / 25–3129 / 26–3229 / 26–3229 / 26–3228 / 25–3128 / 24–3128 / 24–3129 / 25–3329 / 26–3329 / 26–3329 / 25–32
Night °C25 / 18–2625 / 18–2624 / 19–2624 / 20–2624 / 20–2623 / 19–2522 / 19–2522 / 19–2523 / 20–2524 / 20–2625 / 19–2725 / 18–27
Rain mm349 / 30–445337 / 38–431292 / 60–391161 / 89–328139 / 16–30896 / 2–30581 / 2–34358 / 2–34768 / 6–34691 / 23–329153 / 65–315258 / 70–358
DLI34 / 27–3633 / 29–3735 / 31–3835 / 31–3933 / 28–3631 / 26–3432 / 26–3535 / 29–3938 / 30–4340 / 29–4540 / 27–4435 / 26–39
RH %66 / 63–7167 / 63–7166 / 62–7065 / 58–7065 / 53–7064 / 50–7164 / 51–7063 / 54–7064 / 56–7064 / 58–7064 / 60–7165 / 62–71

Each figure is the median across the 701 grid cells holding the 1046 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 2033:6212 (-11.675, 130.625). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 17.0 °C, 1st-percentile night 20.4 °C, 99th-percentile day 34.7 °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 701 distinct grid cells holding the 1046 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 2033:6212 (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 -11.50_130.625, lapse-corrected +6 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 24 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 South-Central, Hainan, Assam, Bangladesh, East Himalaya, Andaman Is., Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Nicobar Is., Thailand, Vietnam, Borneo, Jawa, Lesser Sunda Is., Malaya, Maluku, Philippines, Bismarck Archipelago, New Guinea, Solomon Is., Northern Territory, Queensland· introduced: Trinidad-Tobago
Kew's description“shrub” · “wet tropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker-11.799, 130.651 · in the densest population, 279 records (26% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1073 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 985 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 1 km away. 232 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 27 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 of the 1073 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Dracaena angustifoliaDracaena angustifoliaDracaena angustifoliaDracaena angustifoliaDracaena angustifoliaDracaena angustifoliaDracaena angustifoliaDracaena angustifolia

Photographs: (c) pbsg, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) Chet Burrier, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Lisa Bennett, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) Thomas Mesaglio, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3).

Photographs: iNaturalist 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 Dracaena angustifolia, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

New Spirostanol Steroids and Steroidal Saponins from Roots and Rhizomes of Dracaena angustifolia and Their Antiproliferative Activity
Quan Le Tran, Yasuhiro Tezuka, Arjun H. Banskota, Qui Kim Tran (2001) · Journal of Natural Products
Species Identification of Dracaena Using the Complete Chloroplast Genome as a Super-Barcode
Zhonglian Zhang, Yue Zhang, Meifang Song, Yan-Hong Guan (2019) · Frontiers in Pharmacology
Stability of Chlorophyll as Natural Colorant: A Review for Suji (Dracaena angustifolia (Medik.) Roxb.) Leaves’ Case
Dias Indrasti, Nuri Andarwulan, Eko Hari Purnomo, Nur Wulandari (2018) · Current Research in Nutrition and Food Science Journal
Chemical Constituents and Biological Activities of Vietnamese Medicinal Plants
Arjun H. Banskota, Yasuhiro Tezuka, Quan Hoang Nguyen Tran, Shigetoshi Kadota (2003) · Current Topics in Medicinal Chemistry
Steroidal Saponins from Fresh Stems of Dracaena angustifolia
Min Xu, Ying‐Jun Zhang, Xing‐Cong Li, Melissa R. Jacob (2010) · Journal of Natural Products
Two Anti-inflammatory Steroidal Saponins from Dracaena angustifolia Roxb.
Hui‐Chi Huang, Ming‐Kuem Lin, Syh-Yuan Hwang, Tsong‐Long Hwang (2013) · Molecules
Advanced applications of counter-current chromatography in the isolation of anti-tuberculosis constituents from Dracaena angustifolia
Ryan Case, Yuehong Wang, Scott G. Franzblau, DD Soejarto (2007) · Journal of Chromatography A
Photodynamic effectiveness of laser diode combined with ozone to reduce STaphylicoccus aureus biofilm with exogenous chlorophyll of Dracaena angustifolia leaves
Suryani Dyah Astuti, Nike Dwi Grevika Drantantiyas, Alfian Pramudita Putra, Putri Suryaning Puspita (2019) · Biomedical Photonics
Activity Test of Suji Leaf Extract (Dracaena angustifolia Roxb.) on in vitro cholesterol lowering
Devina Ingrid Anggraini, Lily Fathrah Nabillah (2018) · Jurnal Kimia Sains dan Aplikasi
Klorofil Daun Suji: Potensi dan Tantangan Pengembangan Pewarna Hijau Alami
Dias Indrasti, Nuri Andarwulan, Eko Hari Purnomo, Nur Wulandari (2019) · Jurnal Ilmu Pertanian Indonesia
Isolated compounds from Dracaena angustifolia Roxb and acarbose synergistically/additively inhibit α-glucosidase and α-amylase: an in vitro study
Ji‐Ling Yi, Ting Zhao, Yuanlin Zhang, Yanxing Tan (2022) · BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies

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.

Other Dracaena 8 in the reference

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 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)
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 62 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.