Species
+

Bischofia javanica Blume

Bishopwood, Java-cedar, Javanese bishopweed, Javanese bishopwood

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

Bischofia javanica, or bishop wood, is a plant species of the family Phyllanthaceae. It and the related Bischofia polycarpa are the only two members of genus Bischofia and tribe Bischofieae. These species are distributed throughout southern and southeast Asia to Australia and Polynesia also in North America. The tree is commonly used by tigers to scratch-mark territory in the jungles of Assam where it is locally called uriam. More on Wikipedia ›

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

About the genus · Bischofia

Bischofia is a genus of plants in the family Phyllanthaceae first described as a genus in 1827. It is native to southern China, the Indian subcontinent, Queensland, New Guinea, and various islands of the Pacific. It is the only member of the tribe Bischofieae. More on Wikipedia ›

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

Family
Phyllanthaceae
Described by
Blume
Native to
China South-Central, Hainan, China North-Central +37
Wild records
1439 in range· 486 open

At a glance

Warmest month
29°C
Jul, mean day; nights 24 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
2182mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Jun 338 mm (CHELSA)
Light
22–35DLI
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 September in the northern hemisphere (April to September at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 2182 mm a year, wettest June at 338 mm, driest December at 46 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 22 to 35 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 13.4 °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 Andrachne apetala Roxb.; Andrachne apetala Roxb. ex Benth.; Andrachne apetala Roxb. ex Wall.; Andrachne trifoliata Roxb.; Bischofia javanica subsp. genuina Müll.Arg. and 15 more.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: a summer growing season, April to September in the northern hemisphere (April to September 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 September, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 25.9 °C against a yearly mean of 22.8 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: October to March.

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 338 mm, driest December at 46 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 September. Wettest month June at 338 mm, driest December at 46 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1527 mm to 3670 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: 22 to 35 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 22 to 35 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 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 13.4 °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 13.4 °C, the absolute minimum 10.0 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 28.0 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 13.2 °C in January (across the envelope cells 7.6 °C to 22.7 °C), warmest day 29.1 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 13.4 °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: 62 to 66% 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 13 °C in Jan to 24 °C in Jul. 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 765 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was 10.0 °C and the 99th-percentile day 28.0 °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°28.0° 99th-percentile day (undated)10.0° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400500600mm rainDLI 22–35RH 62–66 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 765 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 / 16–2820 / 17–2823 / 20–2925 / 22–2927 / 24–2928 / 24–3029 / 24–3129 / 24–3128 / 24–3026 / 23–2824 / 20–2821 / 17–28
Night °C13 / 8–2314 / 9–2316 / 12–2320 / 15–2422 / 18–2424 / 19–2624 / 19–2624 / 18–2623 / 18–2521 / 16–2418 / 13–2315 / 9–23
Rain mm50 / 18–28097 / 24–296125 / 37–280171 / 67–258263 / 151–358338 / 154–492306 / 145–522335 / 133–540271 / 110–500113 / 39–37667 / 24–28546 / 17–271
DLI23 / 15–3525 / 17–3630 / 22–3732 / 27–3832 / 27–3633 / 25–3535 / 25–3932 / 28–3630 / 27–3428 / 23–3624 / 18–3422 / 15–33
RH %63 / 57–7064 / 57–7064 / 59–7065 / 61–7066 / 62–7066 / 63–7166 / 63–7166 / 64–7166 / 63–7064 / 60–6963 / 58–6962 / 56–69

Each figure is the median across the 765 grid cells holding the 1413 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 1346:6019 (22.675, 120.975). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 10.0 °C, 1st-percentile night 13.4 °C, 99th-percentile day 28.0 °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 765 distinct grid cells holding the 1413 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1346:6019 (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 22.50_121.250, lapse-corrected +401 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 609 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, China North-Central, China Southeast, Nansei-shoto, Taiwan, Assam, Bangladesh, East Himalaya, India, West Himalaya, Andaman Is., Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Borneo, Jawa, Lesser Sunda Is., Malaya, Maluku, Philippines, Sulawesi, Sumatera, Bismarck Archipelago, New Guinea, Solomon Is., Queensland, Fiji, Niue, New Caledonia, Samoa, Santa Cruz Is., Tonga, Vanuatu, Wallis-Futuna Is., Cook Is., Society Is., Caroline Is.· introduced: Kenya, Ogasawara-shoto, Hawaii, Florida, Puerto Rico
Kew's description“tree” · “wet tropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker24.71, 121.099 · in the densest population, 775 records (54% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1439 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 486 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 134 km away. 265 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 26 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 1439 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Bischofia javanicaBischofia javanicaBischofia javanicaBischofia javanicaBischofia javanicaBischofia javanicaBischofia javanicaBischofia javanica

Photographs: (c) Dinesh Valke, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) (8).

Photographs: iNaturalist and Wikimedia Commons 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 Bischofia javanica, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Independence of stem and leaf hydraulic traits in six Euphorbiaceae tree species with contrasting leaf phenology
Jun‐Wen Chen, Qiang Zhang, Xiaoshuang Li, Kun‐Fang Cao (2009) · Planta
Anti-microbial activity of Bidens pilosa, Bischofia javanica, Elmerillia papuana and Sigesbekia orientalis
Muhammad Rafiullah Khan, Mitsuru Kihara, A.D. Omoloso (2001) · Fitoterapia
Indian medicinal plant extracts to control multidrug-resistant S. aureus, including in biofilms
Sujogya Kumar Panda, Raju Das, Rob Lavigne, Walter Luyten (2019) · South African Journal of Botany
Antinematodal Activity of Some Tropical Rainforest Plants against the Pinewood Nematode, Bursaphelenchus xylophilus
Yohannes Alen, Shûhei Nakajima, Teruhiko Nitoda, Naomichi Baba (2000) · Zeitschrift für Naturforschung C
Seed and seedling demography of invasive and native trees of subtropical Pacific islands
Naoko Yamashita, Nobuyuki Tanaka, Yoshio Hoshi, Hiromichi Kushima (2003) · Journal of Vegetation Science
Carbocatalysis: N-doped reduced graphene oxide catalyzed esterification of fatty acids with long chain alcohols
Jyoti Porwal, Neha Karanwal, Savita Kaul, Suman L. Jain (2015) · New Journal of Chemistry

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 2026-09-20 (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 not askedcarried 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 83 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.