Species
+

Elaeocarpus serratus L.

Ceylon olive, Ceylon-olive, Kara

Climate known 8 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

Elaeocarpus serratus, the Ceylon olive, is a tropical flowering plant in the family Elaeocarpaceae. It is a medium to large tree, with white flowers. It has a disjunctive distribution, with the species occurring in Sri Lanka and southern India, and in Assam, Bangladesh and other parts in the north of the Indian subcontinent. The fruit is commonly eaten, and people also use the plant for ornamental, religious and folk-medicinal purposes. More on Wikipedia ›

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

About the genus · Elaeocarpus

Elaeocarpus is a genus of nearly five hundred species of flowering plants in the family Elaeocarpaceae native to the western Indian Ocean, tropical and subtropical Asia, Australia and the Pacific. Plants in the genus are trees or shrubs with simple leaves, flowers with four or five petals, and usually blue fruit.

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

Family
Elaeocarpaceae
Described by
L.
Native to
Assam, Bangladesh, India +1
Wild records
137 in range· 100 open

At a glance

Warmest month
30°C
Mar, mean day; nights 19 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
2587mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Jul 386 mm (CHELSA)
Light
25–42DLI
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: a sharp rainy season, May to October at the habitat (not shifted); the temperature curve is flat (2.7 °C of range), so no growing season is inferred. Habitat rain 2587 mm a year, wettest July at 386 mm, driest January at 30 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 25 to 42 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 11.9 °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.

Also known as Elaeocarpus adenophyllus Wall.; Elaeocarpus angustifolius Wight; Elaeocarpus barnardii Burkill; Elaeocarpus cuneatus Wight; Elaeocarpus malabaricus Oken and 8 more.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: a sharp rainy season, May to October at the habitat (not shifted); the temperature curve is flat (2.7 °C of range), so no growing season is inferred.

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

The rain rule reads a sharp season: 70% of the year's rain (1923 mm of 2587 mm) falls in May to October. The temperature curve is flat, 2.7 °C between the warmest and coldest month, so the growing-season rule does not infer a growing season from it. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; with a flat temperature curve there is no season to reverse, so they are not shifted for a collection elsewhere.

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 2587 mm a year, wettest July at 386 mm, driest January at 30 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

2587 mm a year at the habitat, 1923 mm of it May to October. Wettest month July at 386 mm, driest January at 30 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1519 mm to 4261 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: 25 to 42 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 25 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 20, 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 11.9 °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 11.9 °C, the absolute minimum 9.7 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 36.5 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 16.5 °C in January (across the envelope cells 11.6 °C to 23.2 °C), warmest day 30.1 °C in March (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 11.9 °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: 57 to 75% 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 25 °C in Jul to 30 °C in Mar; mean night from 17 °C in Jan to 22 °C in May. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 2587 mm of rain a year, most in Jul. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 84 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was 9.7 °C and the 99th-percentile day 36.5 °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°40°36.5° 99th-percentile day (undated)9.7° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter020040060080010001200mm rainDLI 25–42RH 57–75 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 84 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 °C28 / 23–3029 / 25–3230 / 27–3330 / 27–3329 / 25–3226 / 23–3025 / 22–2926 / 22–2926 / 23–2927 / 23–2927 / 22–2927 / 22–29
Night °C17 / 12–2317 / 12–2419 / 15–2521 / 17–2522 / 18–2621 / 17–2520 / 17–2520 / 16–2520 / 16–2520 / 15–2419 / 14–2417 / 12–23
Rain mm30 / 4–12535 / 3–8987 / 22–142181 / 66–292266 / 111–362344 / 113–905386 / 111–1178330 / 107–759273 / 148–389324 / 206–443256 / 67–35675 / 13–178
DLI35 / 32–3840 / 37–4142 / 39–4338 / 36–4233 / 30–3927 / 21–3425 / 20–3426 / 22–3630 / 27–3630 / 27–3429 / 27–3332 / 28–34
RH %57 / 53–6657 / 54–6460 / 53–6466 / 59–6969 / 60–7575 / 66–8175 / 67–8274 / 66–8171 / 66–7769 / 65–7366 / 60–7061 / 55–67

Each figure is the median across the 84 grid cells holding the 135 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 1591:5137 (10.425, 76.875). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 9.7 °C, 1st-percentile night 11.9 °C, 99th-percentile day 36.5 °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 84 distinct grid cells holding the 135 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1591:5137 (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 10.50_76.875, lapse-corrected +303 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 843 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.
NativeAssam, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka· introduced: Mauritius, Réunion, Caroline Is.
Kew's description“shrub or tree” · “seasonally dry tropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker10.352, 76.926 · in the densest population, 69 records (50% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 137 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 100 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 8 km away. 342 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 2 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 137 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Elaeocarpus serratusElaeocarpus serratusElaeocarpus serratusElaeocarpus serratusElaeocarpus serratusElaeocarpus serratusElaeocarpus serratus

Photographs: 葉子, CC0, iNaturalist via GBIF (4); Kiwi Shen, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF; 江麗君, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF (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 Elaeocarpus serratus, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

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
Chemical profiling of Elaeocarpus serratus L. by GC-MS
D Geetha, M Rajeswari, Indhiramuthu Jayashree (2013) · Asian Pacific Journal of Tropical Biomedicine
Antimelanogenesis Effects of Leaf Extract and Phytochemicals from Ceylon Olive (Elaeocarpus serratus) in Zebrafish Model
Chi-Ya Huang, I‐Hsuan Liu, Xiang-Zhe Huang, Hui-Jen Chen (2021) · Pharmaceutics
Antioxidant flavonol glycosides from Elaeocarpus serratus and Filicium decipiens
Lalith Jayasinghe, Nilupa R. Amarasinghe, B.G. Suranga Arundathie, G. Kalinga Rupasinghe (2011) · Natural Product Research
Evaluation of nutritional composition, bioactive compounds and antimicrobial activity of Elaeocarpus serratus fruit extract
Freitas de Lima Fernando, Alves Breda Caroline, Andrea Lima Cardoso Claudia, Cristina Teixeira Duarte Marta (2019) · African Journal of Food Science
Synthesis of Silver Nanoparticles Using Green Reducing Agent: Ceylon Olive (Elaeocarpus serratus): Characterization and Investigating Their Antimicrobial Properties
Kumudu M. Fernando, Chamila Gunathilake, Chandi Yalegama, Upeka Samarakoon (2024) · Journal of Composites Science
Cosmos white rot: First characterization, physiology, host range, disease resistance, and chemical control
Rebeka Jahan, Shaikh S. Siddique, Rayhanur Jannat, Md. Motaher Hossain (2022) · Journal of Basic Microbiology

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 Elaeocarpus 2 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (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 not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: not asked: 7 wild photographs already from the GBIF download
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: filled 2026-09-20
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 58 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.