Syzygium smithii, Burbank QLD 4156, Australia

Syzygium smithii (Poir.) Nied.

Lilly Pilly, Lilly-Pilly Tree, Monkey apple, lilly-pilly

Climate known 76 photographs

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

Syzygium smithii is a summer-flowering, winter-fruiting evergreen tree native to Australia that belongs to the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. It shares the common name "lilly pilly" with several other plants. It is planted as shrubs or hedgerows, and features: rough, woody bark; cream and green smooth, waxy leaves; flushes of pink new growth; and white to maroon edible berries. Unpruned, it will grow about 3–5 m (9.8–16.4 ft) tall in the garden.

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

About the genus · Syzygium

Syzygium is a genus of flowering plants that belongs to the myrtle family, Myrtaceae. The genus comprises about 1200 species, and has a native range that extends from Africa and Madagascar through southern Asia east through the Pacific. Its highest levels of diversity occur from Malaysia to northeastern Australia, where many species are very poorly known and many more have not been described taxonomically. More on Wikipedia ›

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

Family

Myrtaceae

Described by

(Poir.) Nied.

Native to

New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria

Wild records

1805 in range· 1698 open

At a glance

Warmest month

25°C

Jan, mean day; nights 18 °C (CHELSA)

Rain

1134mm/yr

12 wet months · peak Feb 147 mm (CHELSA)

Light

16–42DLI

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 (May to December in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 1134 mm a year, wettest February at 147 mm, driest September at 60 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 16 to 42 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 4.4 °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 Acmena elliptica G.Benn.; Acmena elliptica G.Don; Acmena elliptica G.Don ex Steud.; Acmena floribunda subsp. elliptica A.Cunn.; Acmena floribunda subsp. elliptica A.Cunn. ex DC. and 16 more.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (May to December 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 (862 mm of 1134 mm) takes 8 months, November to June. Mean temperature moves 10.7 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, southern hemisphere; shifted six months for a northern-hemisphere collection: May to December.

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 1134 mm a year, wettest February at 147 mm, driest September at 60 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1134 mm a year at the habitat, 862 mm of it November to June. Wettest month February at 147 mm, driest September at 60 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 861 mm to 1572 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: 16 to 42 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 16 to 42 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 43).

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 4.4 °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 4.4 °C, the absolute minimum 1.4 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 36.7 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 7.1 °C in July (across the envelope cells 3.2 °C to 11.3 °C), warmest day 25.4 °C in January (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 4.4 °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: 56 to 63% 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

day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 1011 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

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
Day °C	25 / 23–28	25 / 23–27	23 / 21–25	21 / 18–23	18 / 15–21	15 / 12–18	15 / 12–18	16 / 13–19	19 / 16–22	21 / 18–24	23 / 20–26	25 / 22–27
Night °C	18 / 14–21	18 / 14–21	16 / 12–20	13 / 9–18	11 / 7–15	8 / 4–12	7 / 3–11	8 / 4–12	10 / 6–14	12 / 8–16	14 / 11–18	16 / 12–20
Rain mm	103 / 70–176	147 / 75–221	111 / 65–196	106 / 70–163	97 / 63–136	91 / 58–123	66 / 45–92	61 / 41–76	60 / 43–77	85 / 69–103	107 / 84–141	100 / 80–161
DLI	41 / 39–43	36 / 34–38	31 / 30–32	24 / 22–27	19 / 16–22	16 / 13–20	18 / 14–22	24 / 20–27	32 / 27–35	37 / 35–38	40 / 39–41	42 / 40–43
RH %	62 / 59–64	63 / 60–66	62 / 60–65	61 / 60–64	61 / 59–63	60 / 58–62	58 / 56–61	56 / 55–59	57 / 55–59	58 / 56–60	60 / 58–62	61 / 58–63

Each figure is the median across the 1011 grid cells holding the 1770 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 2447:6642 (-32.375, 152.125). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 1.4 °C, 1st-percentile night 4.4 °C, 99th-percentile day 36.7 °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 1011 distinct grid cells holding the 1770 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 2447:6642 (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 -32.50_151.875, lapse-corrected +52 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 178 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.

NativeNew South Wales, Queensland, Victoria· introduced: South Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand North, New Caledonia

Kew's description“tree” · “subtropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here

Map marker-33.669, 151.188 · in the densest population, 1109 records (61% of those in range)

Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1805 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 1698 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 2 km away. 72 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 35 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 1805 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Photographs: (c) Greg Tasney, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) (2); (c) T. Hammer, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3); no rights reserved · CC0; (c) Tony van Kampen, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2).

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

How an Indigenous community responded to the incursion and spread of myrtle rust (Austropuccinia psidii) that threatens culturally significant plant species – a case study from New Zealand

Amanda Black, Melanie Mark‐Shadbolt, Gary O. Garner, Jenny Green (2019) · Pacific Conservation Biology

Fuel flammability and fire responses of juvenile canopy species in a temperate rainforest ecosystem

Heidi C Zimmer, Tony D. Auld, Lesley Hughes, Catherine A. Offord (2015) · International Journal of Wildland Fire

Acizzia errabunda sp. nov. and Ctenarytaina insularis sp. nov.: Descriptions of two new species of psyllids (Hemiptera: Psylloidea) discovered on exotic host plants in New Zealand

Francesco Martoni, Karen Armstrong (2019) · PLoS ONE

Prediction of Thermal Response of Burning Outdoor Vegetation Using UAS-Based Remote Sensing and Artificial Intelligence

Pirunthan Keerthinathan, Imanthi Kalanika Subasinghe, Thanirosan Krishnakumar, Anthony Ariyanayagam (2025) · Remote Sensing

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