Species
+

Koelreuteria paniculata Laxm.

Golden-Rain Tree, Goldenrain tree, Goldenrain tree (EN), Panicled Goldenrain Tree

Climate known 56 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

Koelreuteria paniculata is a species of flowering plant in the family Sapindaceae, native to China, Korea, and Manchuria. Naturalized in Japan since at least the 1200s, it was introduced to Europe in 1747 and North America in 1763, and has become a popular landscape tree worldwide. Common names include goldenrain tree, pride of India, China tree, and the varnish tree.

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

About the genus · Koelreuteria

Koelreuteria, also known as chinese lantern tree, is a genus of three species of flowering plants in the family Sapindaceae, native to southern and eastern Asia, as well as the island of Fiji. Many fossil species are also known, suggesting that this genus had a wider range in the past.

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

Family
Sapindaceae
Described by
Laxm.
Native to
China South-Central, Inner Mongolia, Manchuria +3
Wild records
122 in range· 41 open

At a glance

Warmest month
28°C
Jul, mean day; nights 21 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
784mm/yr
8 wet months · peak Jul 185 mm (CHELSA)
Light
16–37DLI
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, May to September in the northern hemisphere (May to September at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 784 mm a year, wettest July at 185 mm, driest December at 6 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 16 to 37 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -9.2 °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 Koelreuteria apiculata Rehder & E.H.Wilson; Koelreuteria chinensis (L.) Hoffmanns.; Koelreuteria japonica Hassk.; Koelreuteria paniculata f. fastigiata (Bean) Rehder; Koelreuteria paniculata f. miyagiensis H.Ohashi & Yu.Sasaki and 9 more.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: a summer growing season, May to September in the northern hemisphere (May 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 (626 mm of 784 mm) falls in May to September, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 21.8 °C against a yearly mean of 12.0 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: November 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 784 mm a year, wettest July at 185 mm, driest December at 6 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

784 mm a year at the habitat, 626 mm of it May to September. Wettest month July at 185 mm, driest December at 6 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 527 mm to 1481 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: 16 to 37 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 16 to 37 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 14, 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 -9.2 °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 -9.2 °C, the absolute minimum -13.8 °C, about 109 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 25.5 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -8.0 °C in January (across the envelope cells -14.4 °C to -1.5 °C), warmest day 27.9 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -9.2 °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: 53 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

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 2 °C in Jan to 28 °C in Jul; mean night from -8 °C in Jan to 21 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 784 mm of rain a year, most in Jul. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 111 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -13.8 °C and the 99th-percentile day 25.5 °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°40°frost25.5° 99th-percentile day (undated)-13.8° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400mm rainDLI 16–37RH 53–63 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 111 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 °C2 / -2–75 / 2–1011 / 7–1518 / 13–2223 / 17–2827 / 20–3128 / 21–3227 / 21–3024 / 18–2618 / 13–2110 / 6–144 / -1–8
Night °C-8 / -14–-2-5 / -11–-0-1 / -5–47 / 2–1012 / 8–1617 / 12–2121 / 14–2321 / 14–2315 / 10–198 / 3–140 / -5–7-5 / -11–1
Rain mm7 / 3–3611 / 5–4425 / 11–6445 / 25–9379 / 39–136110 / 67–206185 / 115–345156 / 108–30196 / 53–18046 / 23–7318 / 9–556 / 3–32
DLI18 / 16–2023 / 21–2530 / 25–3135 / 31–3737 / 34–3937 / 32–3933 / 29–3631 / 28–3327 / 23–2923 / 19–2517 / 16–2216 / 14–19
RH %54 / 47–5953 / 46–6054 / 46–5954 / 45–6056 / 47–6258 / 51–6563 / 58–6963 / 59–6760 / 55–6457 / 51–6255 / 49–6054 / 47–58

Each figure is the median across the 111 grid cells holding the 122 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 1166:5677 (31.675, 103.875). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -13.8 °C, 1st-percentile night -9.2 °C, 99th-percentile day 25.5 °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 111 distinct grid cells holding the 122 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1166:5677 (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 31.50_103.750, lapse-corrected -249 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 2099 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, Inner Mongolia, Manchuria, China North-Central, China Southeast, Korea· introduced: Great Britain, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Hungary, Sardegna, Spain, Bulgaria, Italy, Romania, Yugoslavia, Ukraine, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Japan, India, Vietnam, Idaho, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Connecticut, Indiana, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, District of Columbia
Kew's description“tree” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker40.012, 116.304 · in the densest population, 60 records (49% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 122 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 41 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 51 km away. 1498 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population inside the densest 4° block of the 122 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Koelreuteria paniculataKoelreuteria paniculataKoelreuteria paniculataKoelreuteria paniculataKoelreuteria paniculataKoelreuteria paniculataKoelreuteria paniculataKoelreuteria paniculata

Photographs: (c) M. Whitson, some rights reserved (CC BY) (6); (c) Jon Sullivan, some rights reserved (CC BY); no rights reserved · CC0.

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

Effect of Cd on growth, physiological response, Cd subcellular distribution and chemical forms of Koelreuteria paniculata
Lan Yang, Jian Zhu, Ping Wang, Jing Zeng (2018) · Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety
Insolation and photoperiodic control of tree development near the equator
Rolf Borchert, Zoraida Calle, Alan H. Strahler, André Baertschi (2014) · New Phytologist
Plant water-use efficiency as a metric of urban ecosystem services
Heather R. McCarthy, Diane E. Pataki, G. Darrel Jenerette (2011) · Ecological Applications
Stress Recovery of Campus Street Trees as Visual Stimuli on Graduate Students in Autumn
Lina Guo, Ren-Lin Zhao, Aihua Ren, Lixin Niu (2019) · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Effect of simulated warming on leaf functional traits of urban greening plants
Jiyou Zhu, Hua Zhu, Yujuan Cao, Li JinHang (2020) · BMC Plant Biology
Host plants of Anoplophora glabripennis, a review
Dirk Jan van der Gaag, A.J.M. Loomans (2014) · EPPO Bulletin
Antibacterial and fungicidal activities of ethanol extracts of 38 species of plants
V. V. Zazharskyi, P. О. Davydenko, О. М. Кулішенко, І. В. Боровик (2020) · Biosystems Diversity

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 Koelreuteria 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 answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
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 114 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.