Species
+

Garcinia subelliptica Merr.

Common Garcinia

Climate known 23 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

Garcinia subelliptica, commonly known as the happiness or Fukugi tree, is an evergreen shrub or tree found in coastal subtropical and tropical moist forests of East and Southeast Asia, specifically the Ryukyu Islands of Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Java.

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

About the genus · Garcinia

Garcinia is a genus of flowering plants in the family Clusiaceae native to the Sundaland bioregion of Asia, America, Australia, tropical and southern Africa, and Polynesia. The number of species is disputed; Plants of the World Online (POWO) recognise up to 400. Commonly, the plants in this genus are called saptrees, mangosteens, or garcinias, and is one of several plants known as by the name "monkey fruit". More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Garcinia”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Clusiaceae
Described by
Merr.
Native to
Nansei-shoto, Taiwan, Jawa +1
Wild records
250 in range· 179 open

At a glance

Warmest month
29°C
Jul, mean day; nights 27 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
2471mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Aug 299 mm (CHELSA)
Light
16–41DLI
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: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (April to November in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 2471 mm a year, wettest August at 299 mm, driest December at 143 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 16 to 41 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 14.3 °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.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (April to November in the northern hemisphere).

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

The rain rule reads no season: 70% of the year's rain (1858 mm of 2471 mm) takes 8 months, April to November. Mean temperature moves 9.3 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: October to May.

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 2471 mm a year, wettest August at 299 mm, driest December at 143 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

2471 mm a year at the habitat, 1858 mm of it April to November. Wettest month August at 299 mm, driest December at 143 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 2216 mm to 2987 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: 16 to 41 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 16 to 41 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 15, the highest 90th-percentile month 42).

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 14.3 °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 14.3 °C, the absolute minimum 9.7 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 29.4 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 17.3 °C in January (across the envelope cells 13.6 °C to 18.5 °C), warmest day 28.6 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 14.3 °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: 56 to 68% 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 20 °C in Jan to 29 °C in Jul; mean night from 17 °C in Jan to 27 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 2471 mm of rain a year, most in Aug. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 72 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was 9.7 °C and the 99th-percentile day 29.4 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.10°15°20°25°30°35°29.4° 99th-percentile day (undated)9.7° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400500mm rainDLI 16–41RH 56–68 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 72 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 °C20 / 18–2220 / 18–2222 / 20–2424 / 22–2626 / 24–2728 / 26–2929 / 28–3029 / 28–2928 / 27–2826 / 25–2624 / 23–2421 / 19–22
Night °C17 / 14–1918 / 14–1919 / 16–2022 / 19–2224 / 22–2526 / 24–2727 / 25–2827 / 25–2726 / 24–2624 / 21–2522 / 18–2319 / 15–20
Rain mm146 / 67–201156 / 116–196168 / 94–199187 / 103–205241 / 197–298266 / 211–368172 / 154–348299 / 252–388292 / 241–443218 / 150–287183 / 89–262143 / 67–184
DLI16 / 15–1919 / 19–2226 / 26–2932 / 30–3435 / 32–3637 / 34–3841 / 38–4238 / 34–3833 / 31–3427 / 26–2819 / 19–2216 / 15–18
RH %57 / 55–6359 / 56–6460 / 59–6563 / 62–6565 / 64–6768 / 65–7066 / 64–6966 / 65–6964 / 63–6860 / 59–6559 / 57–6456 / 54–62

Each figure is the median across the 72 grid cells holding the 205 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 1311:6083 (24.425, 124.175). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 9.7 °C, 1st-percentile night 14.3 °C, 99th-percentile day 29.4 °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 72 distinct grid cells holding the 205 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1311:6083 (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 24.50_124.375, lapse-corrected +165 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 169 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.
NativeNansei-shoto, Taiwan, Jawa, Philippines
Kew's description“shrub or tree” · “wet tropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker24.379, 123.844 · in the densest population, 155 records (62% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 250 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 179 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 1 km away. 87 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 45 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 250 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Garcinia subellipticaGarcinia subellipticaGarcinia subellipticaGarcinia subellipticaGarcinia subellipticaGarcinia subellipticaGarcinia subellipticaGarcinia subelliptica

Photographs: (c) Lena Struwe, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) (3); (c) Niels Klazenga, some rights reserved (CC BY); no rights reserved · CC0 (3); (c) maijin, some rights reserved (CC BY).

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

Screening for Tyrosinase Inhibitors among Extracts of Seashore Plants and Identification of Potent Inhibitors from Garcinia subelliptica
Toshiya Masuda, Daiki Yamashita, Yoshio Takeda, Shigetomo Yonemori (2005) · Bioscience Biotechnology and Biochemistry
Antioxidant xanthones from Garcinia subelliptica
Hiroyuki Minami, M Kinoshita, Yoshiyasu Fukuyama, Mitsuaki Kodama (1994) · Phytochemistry
Anti-inflammatory Phloroglucinols and Terpenoids from Garcinia subelliptica
Jing‐Ru Weng, Lo‐Ti Tsao, Jih-Pyang Wang, Ru‐Rong Wu (2004) · Journal of Natural Products
Garsubellins, polyisoprenylated phloroglucinol derivatives from Garcinia subelliptica
Yoshiyasu Fukuyama, Hiroyuki Minami, Atsuko KUWAYAMA (1998) · Phytochemistry
Cytotoxic Polyisoprenyl Benzophenonoids from Garcinia subelliptica
Li-Jie Zhang, Chun-Tang Chiou, Jing‐Jy Cheng, Hui‐Chi Huang (2010) · Journal of Natural Products
Phloroglucinols with Prooxidant Activity from Garcinia subelliptica
Chien-Chang Wu, Yi‐Huang Lu, Bai‐Luh Wei, Shyh‐Chyun Yang (2008) · Journal of Natural Products
Novel Xanthones with Superoxide Scavenging Activity from Garcinia subelliptica.
Hiroyuki Minami, Emi Takahashi, Yoshiyasu Fukuyama, Mitsuaki Kodama (1995) · Chemical and Pharmaceutical Bulletin
Three xanthones from Garcinia subelliptica
Hiroyuki Minami, Emi Takahashi, Mitsuaki Kodama, Yoshiyasu Fukuyama (1996) · Phytochemistry
Cytotoxic and antioxidant constituents from Garcinia subelliptica
Kai‐Wei Lin, A‐Mei Huang, Shyh‐Chyun Yang, Jing‐Ru Weng (2012) · Food Chemistry
Constituents of the Pericarp of Garcinia subelliptica
Chien-Chang Wu, Jing‐Ru Weng, Shen‐Jeu Won, Chun‐Nan Lin (2005) · Journal of Natural Products
Three xanthones from root bark of Garcinia subelliptica
Munekazu Iinuma, Hideki Tosa, Toŝhiyuki Tanaka, Fujio Asai (1995) · Phytochemistry

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 Garcinia 1 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (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 23 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.