Species
+

Machilus thunbergii Siebold & Zucc.

Thunberg’s bay-tree, hong nan, tabu, tabu-no-ki

Climate known 77 photographs
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

Machilus thunbergii, the Japanese bay tree, red machilus, or tabunoki, is a widespread species of flowering plant in the family Lauraceae. It is native to Vietnam, Taiwan, southeast and north-central China, the Korean Peninsula, and Japan. A sturdy evergreen tree, usually 10–15 m (30–50 ft) tall, and reaching 20 m (70 ft), it is used for timber, and as a street tree. Its bark is the source of makko, a powder used to make a mosquito‑repelling incense. More on Wikipedia ›

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

About the genus · Machilus

Machilus is a genus of flowering plants in the family Lauraceae. It is found in temperate, subtropical, and tropical forest, occurring in China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Indochina, the Indian subcontinent, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

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

Family
Lauraceae
Described by
Siebold & Zucc.
Native to
China North-Central, China Southeast, Japan +4
Wild records
1499 in range· 844 open

At a glance

Warmest month
28°C
Aug, mean day; nights 24 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
2182mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Jun 300 mm (CHELSA)
Light
16–34DLI
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, April to October in the northern hemisphere (April to October at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 2182 mm a year, wettest June at 300 mm, driest December at 60 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 16 to 34 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -3.4 °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 Laurus indica Thunb.; Machilus arisanensis (Hayata) Hayata; Machilus arisanensis var. nanshoensis (Kaneh.) Yamam.; Machilus kwashotensis Hayata; Machilus macrophylla subsp. arisanensis Hayata and 13 more.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: a summer growing season, April to October in the northern hemisphere (April 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 (1684 mm of 2182 mm) falls in April to October, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 21.6 °C against a yearly mean of 16.8 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: October to April.

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 2182 mm a year, wettest June at 300 mm, driest December at 60 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

2182 mm a year at the habitat, 1684 mm of it April to October. Wettest month June at 300 mm, driest December at 60 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1450 mm to 3854 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 34 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 16 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 13, the highest 90th-percentile month 39).

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 -3.4 °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 -3.4 °C, the absolute minimum -8.6 °C, about 52 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 35.2 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 4.3 °C in January (across the envelope cells -0.6 °C to 14.3 °C), warmest day 27.9 °C in August (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -3.4 °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: 58 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 10 °C in Jan to 28 °C in Aug; mean night from 4 °C in Jan to 24 °C in Aug. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 2182 mm of rain a year, most in Jun. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 816 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -8.6 °C and the 99th-percentile day 35.2 °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°frost35.2° 99th-percentile day (undated)-8.6° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400500600mm rainDLI 16–34RH 58–68 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 816 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 °C10 / 5–1811 / 6–1914 / 10–2118 / 14–2422 / 17–2624 / 20–2927 / 24–3128 / 25–3026 / 23–2821 / 18–2617 / 13–2312 / 8–19
Night °C4 / -1–145 / 0–148 / 3–1612 / 8–1916 / 13–2219 / 17–2523 / 20–2624 / 20–2621 / 17–2516 / 12–2211 / 7–196 / 2–16
Rain mm75 / 37–218107 / 50–233158 / 80–242181 / 100–256228 / 126–358300 / 165–530279 / 158–479273 / 151–503259 / 149–529164 / 55–38398 / 50–29860 / 32–225
DLI17 / 14–2021 / 17–2426 / 22–3032 / 27–3533 / 29–3732 / 28–3634 / 31–3933 / 31–3628 / 25–3124 / 20–2718 / 16–2316 / 13–20
RH %58 / 54–6759 / 54–6760 / 56–6762 / 58–6864 / 61–6867 / 64–7068 / 64–7367 / 64–7064 / 62–6961 / 58–6859 / 56–6758 / 55–66

Each figure is the median across the 816 grid cells holding the 1472 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 1093:6390 (35.325, 139.525). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -8.6 °C, 1st-percentile night -3.4 °C, 99th-percentile day 35.2 °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 816 distinct grid cells holding the 1472 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1093:6390 (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 35.50_139.375, lapse-corrected -205 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 28 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 North-Central, China Southeast, Japan, Korea, Nansei-shoto, Taiwan, Vietnam
Kew's description“tree” · “subtropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker24.935, 121.536 · in the densest population, 620 records (41% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1499 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 844 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 29 km away. 12 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 1499 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Machilus thunbergiiMachilus thunbergiiMachilus thunbergiiMachilus thunbergiiMachilus thunbergiiMachilus thunbergiiMachilus thunbergiiMachilus thunbergii

Photographs: (c) Marco Mussita, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); no rights reserved · CC0 (5); (c) 岸本年郎, 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 Machilus thunbergii, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Inhibitory activity of plant extracts on nitric oxide synthesis in LPS‐activated macrophages
Jae‐Ha Ryu, Hanna Ahn, Jiyeon Kim, Young‐Kyoon Kim (2003) · Phytotherapy Research
Lignans from machilus thunbergii
Hiroko Shimomura, Yutaka Sashida, Motomu Oohara (1987) · Phytochemistry
Antioxidant Lignans from Machilus thunbergii Protect CCl4-injured Primary Cultures of Rat Hepatocytes
Young Uck Yu, So Young Kang, Hae Young Park, Sang Hyun Sung (2000) · Journal of Pharmacy and Pharmacology
Lignans from Machilus thunbergii
Hiroko Shimomura, Yutaka Sashida, Motomu Oohara (1988) · Phytochemistry
Contrasting phylogeographical patterns of two closely related species, Machilus thunbergii and Machilus kusanoi (Lauraceae), in Taiwan
Su‐Hwa Wu, Ching‐Yuan Hwang, Tsan‐Piao Lin, Jeng‐Der Chung (2006) · Journal of Biogeography
Increase of Caspase-3 Activity by Lignans from Machilus thunbergii in HL-60 Cells
Boyoung Park, Byung-Sun Min, Ok‐Kyoung Kwon, Sei‐Ryang Oh (2004) · Biological and Pharmaceutical Bulletin
A Study on Vascular Plants of Uninhabited Islands in the Deokjeok Archipelago
Jung-Hyun Kim, Jong‐Hak Yun, Gi-Heum Nam, Jung‐Hyun Lee (2011) · Journal of Environmental Science International
Lignans from the Bark of Machilus thunbergii and Their DNA Topoisomerases I and II Inhibition and Cytotoxicity
Gao Li, Chong-Soon Lee, Mi‐Hee Woo, Seung‐Ho Lee (2004) · Biological and Pharmaceutical Bulletin

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 86 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.