Species
+

Cercidiphyllum japonicum Siebold & Zucc.

Katsura, Katsura Tree, Katsura tree (EN), Katsura-tree

Climate known 73 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

Cercidiphyllum japonicum, known as the Katsura, is a species of flowering tree in the family Cercidiphyllaceae native to China and Japan. It is sometimes called caramel tree for the light caramel smell it emits during leaf fall. It is also sometimes called candyfloss tree because of the scent.

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

About the genus · Cercidiphyllum

Cercidiphyllum is a genus containing two species of plants, both commonly called katsura. They are the sole members of the monotypic family Cercidiphyllaceae. The genus is native to Japan and China and unrelated to Cercis (redbuds).

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

Family
Cercidiphyllaceae
Described by
Siebold & Zucc.
Native to
China South-Central, China North-Central, China Southeast +1
Wild records
382 in range· 328 open

At a glance

Warmest month
25°C
Aug, mean day; nights 19 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
1896mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Sep 253 mm (CHELSA)
Light
15–34DLI
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 1896 mm a year, wettest September at 253 mm, driest December at 75 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 15 to 34 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -10.1 °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 Cercidiphyllum japonicum f. pendulum (Miyoshi ex Makino & Nemoto) Ohwi; Cercidiphyllum japonicum f. piramidale V.V.Byalt & Firsov; Cercidiphyllum japonicum var. pendulum Miyoshi; Cercidiphyllum japonicum var. pendulum Miyoshi ex Makino & Nemoto; Cercidiphyllum japonicum var. sinense Rehder & E.H.Wilson and 2 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 (1409 mm of 1896 mm) falls in April to October, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 16.3 °C against a yearly mean of 10.2 °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 1896 mm a year, wettest September at 253 mm, driest December at 75 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1896 mm a year at the habitat, 1409 mm of it April to October. Wettest month September at 253 mm, driest December at 75 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1211 mm to 3016 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: 15 to 34 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 15 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 11, the highest 90th-percentile month 36).

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 -10.1 °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 -10.1 °C, the absolute minimum -15.3 °C, about 143 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 28.5 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -7.1 °C in January (across the envelope cells -13.3 °C to -0.4 °C), warmest day 25.2 °C in August (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -10.1 °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: 59 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 1 °C in Jan to 25 °C in Aug; mean night from -7 °C in Jan to 19 °C in Aug. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 1896 mm of rain a year, most in Sep. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 323 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -15.3 °C and the 99th-percentile day 28.5 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-20°-10°10°20°30°frost28.5° 99th-percentile day (undated)-15.3° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400500mm rainDLI 15–34RH 59–68 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 323 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 °C1 / -5–71 / -4–85 / 0–1212 / 7–1717 / 13–2121 / 17–2424 / 20–2725 / 21–2921 / 18–2516 / 12–2010 / 5–154 / -2–10
Night °C-7 / -13–-0-7 / -12–0-3 / -8–43 / -2–98 / 4–1313 / 9–1817 / 13–2219 / 14–2215 / 11–198 / 4–132 / -3–7-4 / -10–2
Rain mm82 / 38–20987 / 38–168122 / 65–213133 / 78–210161 / 105–248203 / 111–341248 / 150–409232 / 147–347253 / 163–363179 / 101–239121 / 62–23475 / 33–221
DLI17 / 13–1921 / 19–2428 / 25–3033 / 30–3534 / 32–3632 / 28–3530 / 28–3330 / 27–3324 / 22–2720 / 18–2316 / 13–1815 / 11–17
RH %62 / 55–6761 / 56–6660 / 57–6359 / 57–6261 / 59–6365 / 62–6868 / 64–7167 / 63–7066 / 62–6962 / 60–6661 / 58–6561 / 56–66

Each figure is the median across the 323 grid cells holding the 366 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 1090:6383 (35.475, 139.175). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -15.3 °C, 1st-percentile night -10.1 °C, 99th-percentile day 28.5 °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 323 distinct grid cells holding the 366 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1090:6383 (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 +828 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 1061 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, China North-Central, China Southeast, Japan· introduced: Austria, Germany, Korea, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania
Kew's description“tree” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker36.021, 139.003 · in the densest population, 146 records (38% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 382 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 328 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 5 km away. 685 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 16 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 382 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Cercidiphyllum japonicumCercidiphyllum japonicumCercidiphyllum japonicumCercidiphyllum japonicumCercidiphyllum japonicumCercidiphyllum japonicumCercidiphyllum japonicumCercidiphyllum japonicum

Photographs: (c) Marco Mussita, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) Navin Sasikumar, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); no rights reserved · CC0 (2); (c) りなべる, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) WATANABE Hitoshi 渡辺仁, some rights reserved (CC BY).

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

Breakdown of chlorophyll: A nonenzymatic reaction accounts for the formation of the colorless “nonfluorescent” chlorophyll catabolites
Michael Oberhuber, Joachim Berghold, Kathrin Breuker, Stefan Hörtensteiner (2003) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
The effects of Sasa and canopy gap formation on tree regeneration in an old beech forest
M. Abe, J. Izaki, Hideo Miguchi, Takashi Masaki (2002) · Journal of Vegetation Science
A 370-year dendroecological history of an old-growth Abies-Acer-Quercus forest in Hokkaido, northern Japan
Marc D. Abrams, Carolyn A. Copenheaver, Kazuhiko Terazawa, Kiyoshi Umeki (1999) · Canadian Journal of Forest Research
Chlorophyll Breakdown – On a Nonfluorescent Chlorophyll Catabolite from Spinach
Michael Oberhuber, Joachim Berghold, Walter Mühlecker, Stefan Hörtensteiner (2001) · Helvetica Chimica Acta
Rhodococcus cercidiphylli sp. nov., a new endophytic actinobacterium isolated from a Cercidiphyllum japonicum leaf
Jie Li, Guo‐Zhen Zhao, Hua-Hong Chen, Sheng Qin (2008) · Systematic and Applied Microbiology
Juvenile Wood of Hardwoods Judged by Density Variation
Kazumi Fukazawa (1984) · IAWA Journal - KU Leuven/IAWA Journal

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