Species
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Excoecaria cochinchinensis Lour.

Euphorbiaceae

Climate known 5 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

Excoecaria cochinchinensis is a species of flowering plant in the spurge family, Euphorbiaceae. It is sometimes referred to by the common names Chinese croton, blindness tree, buta buta, and jungle fire plant. It is native to Southeast China, Hainan, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam.

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

About the genus · Excoecaria

Excoecaria is a plant genus of the family Euphorbiaceae, formally described by Linnaeus in 1759. The genus is native to the Old World Tropics.

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

Family
Euphorbiaceae
Described by
Lour.
Native to
Hainan, China Southeast, Taiwan +5
Wild records
289 in range· 188 open

At a glance

Warmest month
30°C
Jul, mean day; nights 25 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
1725mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Sep 250 mm (CHELSA)
Light
27–37DLI
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, May to October at the habitat (not shifted). Habitat rain 1725 mm a year, wettest September at 250 mm, driest January at 31 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 27 to 37 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 12.3 °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 Antidesma bicolor Hassk.; Excoecaria bicolor (Hassk.) Zoll.; Excoecaria bicolor (Hassk.) Zoll. ex Hassk.; Excoecaria bicolor subsp. orientalis; Excoecaria bicolor subsp. purpurascens and 8 more.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: a summer growing season, May to October at the habitat (not shifted).

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 (1345 mm of 1725 mm) falls in May to October, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 26.9 °C against a yearly mean of 25.2 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere, within 10° of the equator; with no thermal season there 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 1725 mm a year, wettest September at 250 mm, driest January at 31 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1725 mm a year at the habitat, 1345 mm of it May to October. Wettest month September at 250 mm, driest January at 31 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1324 mm to 2731 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: 27 to 37 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 27 to 37 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 16, the highest 90th-percentile month 40).

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 12.3 °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 12.3 °C, the absolute minimum 5.9 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 38.8 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 17.6 °C in January (across the envelope cells 9.8 °C to 23.6 °C), warmest day 29.6 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 12.3 °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: 60 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 25 °C in Dec to 30 °C in Jul; mean night from 18 °C in Jan to 25 °C in Jun. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 1725 mm of rain a year, most in Sep. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 196 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was 5.9 °C and the 99th-percentile day 38.8 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.10°20°30°40°38.8° 99th-percentile day (undated)5.9° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400500mm rainDLI 27–37RH 60–67 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 196 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 °C27 / 17–3028 / 19–3229 / 21–3329 / 24–3429 / 27–3330 / 28–3130 / 27–3230 / 27–3129 / 27–3028 / 26–3026 / 23–2925 / 19–29
Night °C18 / 10–2419 / 12–2421 / 15–2523 / 19–2624 / 21–2625 / 22–2625 / 22–2624 / 22–2623 / 21–2622 / 19–2520 / 15–2418 / 11–24
Rain mm31 / 6–20839 / 15–14275 / 32–218136 / 71–248218 / 156–322210 / 135–428224 / 152–391248 / 163–411250 / 146–372195 / 69–34268 / 36–33031 / 7–305
DLI30 / 16–3435 / 17–3836 / 20–4037 / 24–4033 / 28–3732 / 28–3632 / 27–3732 / 26–3530 / 26–3429 / 24–3327 / 21–3127 / 18–32
RH %61 / 55–6663 / 54–6764 / 55–6865 / 58–6966 / 62–7066 / 63–7166 / 62–7167 / 63–7266 / 63–7165 / 60–7162 / 57–7060 / 55–68

Each figure is the median across the 196 grid cells holding the 280 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 1505:5630 (14.725, 101.525). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 5.9 °C, 1st-percentile night 12.3 °C, 99th-percentile day 38.8 °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 196 distinct grid cells holding the 280 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1505:5630 (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 14.50_101.250, lapse-corrected -22 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 299 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.
NativeHainan, China Southeast, Taiwan, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaya· introduced: China South-Central, Lesser Sunda Is., Trinidad-Tobago
Kew's description“shrub” · “wet tropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker1.372, 103.833 · in the densest population, 106 records (37% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 289 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 188 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 22 km away. 50 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 9 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 4° block of the 289 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Excoecaria cochinchinensisExcoecaria cochinchinensisExcoecaria cochinchinensisExcoecaria cochinchinensis

Photographs: (c) Ong Jyh Seng, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA); (c) Татьяна Максимова, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Max Yuen, some rights reserved (CC BY); Henry Tu, CC BY-SA, via GBIF.

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

Isolation of Antibabesial Compounds fromBrucea javanica,Curcuma xanthorrhiza, andExcoecaria cochinchinensis
Kazuaki Yamada, Subeki Subeki, Kensuke Nabeta, Masahiro Yamasaki (2009) · Bioscience Biotechnology and Biochemistry
New Megastigmane Glucosides from Excoecaria cochinchinensis LOUR. var. cochinchinensis
Phan Minh Giang, Phan Tông Son, Katsuyoshi Matsunami, Hideaki Otsuka (2005) · Chemical and Pharmaceutical Bulletin
Evaluation of Cytotoxic Potential of Indonesian Medicinal Plants in Cultured Human Cancer Cells
Go-Woo-Ni Park, Eun Jin Lee, Hye‐Young Min, Hyeyoung Choi (2002) · Natural Product Sciences
Metabolites from Excoecaria cochinchinensis Lour.
Lai Hop Hieu, Nguyễn Phương Thảo, Do Hoang Anh, Trần Thị Hồng Hạnh (2019) · Phytochemistry Letters
Ketebalan Daun dan Laju Transpirasi Pada Tanaman Hias Dikotil
Yuliana Ovan Dacosta, Entin Daningsih (2022) · Jurnal Ilmu Pertanian Indonesia
ANALISIS KEMAMPUAN TANAMAN SEMAK DI MEDIAN JALAN DALAM MENYERAP LOGAM BERAT Pb
Luki Anisa Nurul Fathia, Medha Baskara, Sitawati Sitawati (2015) · Jurnal Produksi Tanaman
Three New Highly Oxygenated Diterpenoids from Excoecaria cochinchinensis L our .
Jing‐Hua Yang, Shi‐De Luo, Jingfeng Zhao, Yun-Song Wang (2005) · Helvetica Chimica Acta
Excochinlignan: A new coumarino lignan from Excoecaria cochinchinensis Lour
Huong Thi Thu Le, Phan-Si-Nguyen Dong, Le-Thuy-Thuy-Trang Hoang, Hoai-Vu Nguyen-Si (2025) · Medicinal Chemistry Research

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 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (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 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not asked
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; 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 40 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.