Species
+

Boswellia elongata Balf.fil.

Burseraceae

Climate known 24 photographs Cactus or succulent
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

Boswellia elongata is a species of plant in the Burseraceae family. It is endemic to Socotra. Its natural habitats are subtropical or tropical dry forests and subtropical or tropical dry shrubland.

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

About the genus · Boswellia

Boswellia is a genus of trees in the family Burseraceae, known for its fragrant resin. The biblical incense frankincense is an extract from the resin of the tree Boswellia sacra, and is now produced also from B. frereana. Boswellia species are moderate-sized flowering plants, including both trees and shrubs.

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

Family
Burseraceae
Described by
Balf.fil.
Native to
Socotra
Wild records
52 in range· 26 open

At a glance

Warmest month
32°C
May, mean day; nights 25 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
227mm/yr
4 wet months · peak Dec 68 mm (CHELSA)
Light
32–46DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Grouped as a cactus or succulent by the genus Boswellia, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a rainy season, May and October to December in the northern hemisphere, at the year's mean temperature, so called neither winter nor summer. Habitat rain 227 mm a year, wettest December at 68 mm, driest July at 2 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 32 to 46 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 19.9 °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

Grouped as a cactus or succulent by the genus Boswellia, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). The table holds no figure for this group, which spans too much for one minimum; the cold floor is the habitat's alone, and no prose comes from the table.

Its year Rain rule: a rainy season, May and October to December in the northern hemisphere, at the year's mean temperature, so called neither winter nor summer.

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

The rain rule reads a rainy season with no name: 70% of the year's rain (180 mm of 227 mm) falls in May and October to December, whose mean temperature, 25.3 °C, is within half a degree of the year's, 25.3 °C, so it is neither the cooler nor the warmer part of the year. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: April to June and November.

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 227 mm a year, wettest December at 68 mm, driest July at 2 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

227 mm a year at the habitat, 180 mm of it May and October to December. Wettest month December at 68 mm, driest July at 2 mm; 3 months under 5 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 153 mm to 257 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: 32 to 46 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 32 to 46 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 30, the highest 90th-percentile month 47).

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 19.9 °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 19.9 °C, the absolute minimum 18.1 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 28.9 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 19.8 °C in January (across the envelope cells 18.9 °C to 21.9 °C), warmest day 31.5 °C in May (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 19.9 °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 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 26 °C in Jan to 32 °C in May; mean night from 20 °C in Jan to 25 °C in May. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 227 mm of rain a year, most in Dec. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 15 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was 18.1 °C and the 99th-percentile day 28.9 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.15°20°25°30°35°28.9° 99th-percentile day (undated)18.1° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0255075100mm rainDLI 32–46RH 60–66 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 15 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 °C26 / 24–2626 / 25–2829 / 27–3031 / 30–3332 / 31–3330 / 29–3028 / 27–2928 / 27–2829 / 28–2929 / 28–3028 / 26–2826 / 24–27
Night °C20 / 19–2220 / 19–2221 / 20–2323 / 22–2525 / 25–2725 / 24–2624 / 23–2524 / 23–2523 / 23–2422 / 21–2421 / 20–2421 / 20–23
Rain mm12 / 4–165 / 3–85 / 4–69 / 8–1225 / 19–394 / 3–82 / 1–42 / 1–48 / 5–1740 / 31–4347 / 28–5868 / 33–77
DLI34 / 32–3639 / 38–4145 / 44–4646 / 46–4742 / 41–4337 / 36–3836 / 36–3736 / 36–3638 / 37–3839 / 38–4035 / 34–3732 / 30–34
RH %61 / 58–6561 / 58–6460 / 57–6460 / 57–6263 / 60–6663 / 59–6562 / 59–6463 / 59–6566 / 62–6963 / 61–6663 / 59–6661 / 59–66

Each figure is the median across the 15 grid cells holding the 18 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 1549:4686 (12.525, 54.325). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 18.1 °C, 1st-percentile night 19.9 °C, 99th-percentile day 28.9 °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 15 distinct grid cells holding the 18 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1549:4686 (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 12.50_54.375, lapse-corrected +367 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 427 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.
NativeSocotra
Kew's description“tree” · “seasonally dry tropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker12.517, 54.283 · in the densest population, 52 records (100% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 52 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 26 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 2 km away. 2 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 34 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 52 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Boswellia elongataBoswellia elongataBoswellia elongataBoswellia elongataBoswellia elongataBoswellia elongataBoswellia elongataBoswellia elongata

Photographs: (c) Morten Ross, some rights reserved (CC BY) (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 Boswellia elongata, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Phytochemical screening and antiviral activity of some medicinal plants from the island Soqotra
Ramzi A. Mothana, R Mentel, Christiane Reiss, Ulrike Lindequist (2006) · Phytotherapy Research
Assessment of Antimalarial Activity against Plasmodium falciparum and Phytochemical Screening of Some Yemeni Medicinal Plants
Mohammed Abdullah Alshawsh, Ramzi A. Mothana, Hassan Abdulwahab Al-Shamahy, Salah F. Alsllami (2007) · Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine
Chemical Composition and Biological Activities of Essential Oils from the Oleogum Resins of Three Endemic Soqotraen Boswellia Species
Nasser A. Awadh Ali, Martina Wurster, Norbert Arnold, Axel Teichert (2008) · Records of Natural Products
Development of a population of Boswellia elongata Balf. F. in Homhil nature sanctuary, Socotra island (Yemen)
Samuel Lvončík, Petr Vahalík, Frans Bongers, Jan Peijnenburg (2020) · RENDICONTI LINCEI
Anticholinesterase activity of endemic plant extracts from Soqotra
H Bakthir, Nasser A. Awadh Ali, Nasser A. Awadh Ali, Norbert Arnold (2011) · African Journal of Traditional Complementary and Alternative Medicines
Distribution, ecology, and threats assessment of 11 endemic frankincense tree taxa (Boswellia) in the Socotra Archipelago (Yemen)
Petr Maděra, Petr Vahalík, Salem Hamdiah, Karolína Hušková (2024) · Plants People Planet
Screening of selected Arabian medicinal plant extracts for inhibitory activity against peptidases.
A Oleski, U Lindequist, Ramzi A. Mothana, Matthias F. Melzig (2006) · PubMed
Analgesic and Anti-inflammatory Activities of Boswellia elongata balf Methanolic Extracts, as Endemic Plants in Yemen
Ahmed Alwashli, Mosa’d Al-Sobarry, Rachad Alnamer, Yahia Cherrah (2012) · Journal of Biologically Active Products from Nature
Geographical and environmental influences on Boswellia elongata Balf.f. volatiles: An in situ study on Socotra Island
Jana Tulková, Antonio Pompeiano, Tara Joy Massad, Petr Vahalík (2024) · Flora
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility

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 Boswellia 21 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (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 7 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.