79 photographs › At a glance
- Jan
- Feb
- Mar
- Apr
- May
- Jun, shaded
- Jul, shaded
- Aug, shaded
- Sep, shaded
- Oct, shaded
- Nov
- Dec
Summary
Mesua ferrea, the Ceylon ironwood, or cobra saffron, is a species in the family Calophyllaceae native to the Indomalayan realm. This slow-growing tree is named after the heaviness and hardness of its timber. It is widely cultivated as an ornamental for its graceful shape, grayish-green foliage with a striking pink to red flush of drooping young leaves, and its large, fragrant white flowers. It is the national tree of Sri Lanka, as well as the state tree of Mizoram and state flower of Tripura in India.
Quoted from Wikipedia, "Mesua ferrea", CC BY-SA 4.0.
Cultivation
Seasons
The rain rule reads a rainy season with no name: 70% of the median year's rain (1,991 mm of 2,735 mm) falls in June to October, whose mean temperature, 25.7 °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: December to April.
Rain
2,735 mm in the median year at the habitat, 1,991 mm of it June to October. Wettest month June at 503 mm, driest month January at 17 mm. Across the grid cells of the range the year's total runs 1,519 mm to 4,133 mm, the 10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year. The median of the cells' own yearly totals, 2,824 mm, is the year's rain at the top of the page; the 2,735 mm here is the median year's, the twelve monthly medians added, which the rain rule reads. Habitat calendar, northern hemisphere; median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA.
Light
Open sky over the habitat: 26 to 41 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 21, the highest 90th-percentile month 42).
Warmth and air
Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at a typical spot in the range is 12.7 °C, the absolute minimum 10.5 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 37.3 °C. Monthly means: the coldest month's mean nightly low 17.7 °C in January (across the grid cells of the range 11.2 °C to 23.4 °C), the warmest month's mean daily high 31.1 °C in March (median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). Cold floor: 12.7 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at a typical spot in the range (NASA POWER).
Relative humidity at the habitat: 57 to 71% across the year (monthly means, median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.
How this section is made
Each card states this species' habitat figures with their sources, and what two fixed rules read from them; nothing here says what the plant does, wants or tolerates. The rules · the terms.
Seasons. Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the grid cells of the range: 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 moves 4 °C or more and the habitat lies 10° or more from the equator. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.
Rain. CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the grid cells of the range. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.
Light. 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.
Temperature. NASA POWER daily minima and maxima over 44 years at a typical spot in the range, lapse-corrected +179 m to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the grid cells of the range. The cold floor is the 1st-percentile night named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.
Humidity. CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the grid cells of the range.
Climate across the habitat
Habitat months, northern hemisphere
Mean daily high from 27 °C in Jul to 31 °C in Mar and Apr; mean nightly low from 18 °C in Jan, Feb and Dec to 24 °C in Jun. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest month's mean nightly low, centred on the 3 months in a row that tie for it. 2,735 mm of rain in the median year (the twelve monthly medians added), the wettest month Jun. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 166 habitat cells. Over 44 years at a typical spot in the range (NASA POWER) the absolute minimum was 10.5 °C and the 99th-percentile day 37.3 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.
Figures by month
| Figure | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Day °C | 29 / 22–32 | 30 / 23–33 | 31 / 27–34 | 31 / 27–34 | 30 / 26–32 | 28 / 24–31 | 27 / 23–31 | 28 / 23–31 | 28 / 24–30 | 28 / 24–30 | 28 / 24–29 | 28 / 23–30 |
| Night °C | 18 / 11–23 | 18 / 13–24 | 20 / 16–25 | 23 / 18–26 | 23 / 19–26 | 24 / 19–25 | 23 / 18–25 | 23 / 18–25 | 23 / 18–25 | 22 / 17–24 | 20 / 15–24 | 18 / 12–24 |
| Rain mm | 17 / 5–52 | 29 / 5–63 | 62 / 20–133 | 154 / 66–249 | 256 / 124–354 | 503 / 156–946 | 491 / 150–1079 | 374 / 143–718 | 296 / 168–401 | 327 / 133–421 | 187 / 28–301 | 39 / 11–107 |
| DLI | 36 / 24–37 | 39 / 29–41 | 41 / 35–42 | 38 / 34–41 | 33 / 30–37 | 27 / 22–33 | 26 / 21–32 | 28 / 23–33 | 31 / 26–34 | 30 / 27–33 | 29 / 25–32 | 32 / 23–34 |
| RH % | 57 / 53–62 | 58 / 53–61 | 59 / 54–62 | 64 / 58–68 | 66 / 62–73 | 70 / 65–80 | 71 / 66–80 | 70 / 66–79 | 69 / 66–76 | 68 / 63–72 | 65 / 57–68 | 61 / 55–66 |
How this section is made
Natural habitat
How this section is made
Photographs
Photographs: (c) Nadezhda Bortnikova, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Jyotsna Nag, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); author not stated, no rights reserved · CC0; (c) Margaret Donald, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2).
Related
Similar habitat climate The 6 nearest by mean daily high, mean nightly low and rain, month by month. How.
Lindernia rotundifolia Baby’s Tears Photo: CC BY, James Hardee
Canarium strictum Black Dammer Photo: CC BY, T R Shankar Raman
Phalaenopsis deliciosa Orchidaceae Photo: CC0, author not stated
Pterygota alata Malvaceae Photo: CC BY, grass_0
Procris repens Polynesian Ivy Photo: CC BY, Michael Berardozzi
Tetrameles nudiflora Shidam tree Photo: CC BY, sucker69420Names & registers
Also known as Calophyllum nagassarium; Mesua coromandelina; Mesua ferrea subsp. salicina; Mesua ferrea var. salicina; Mesua nagana and 10 more. (GBIF Backbone)
Kew accepts as species of their own Mesua sclerophylla: older names in GBIF's record of this species that Kew's World Checklist accepts as other species. (WCVP, RBG Kew, file of 2026-06-04)
The record
Every figure here is derived from public data by a stated rule and names its source; nothing about this species is written for its page by a person or by AI, apart from the marked, credited quotations. How →
Where this page came from built 2026-10-22
gbif.species answeredasked 2026-10-22gbif.synonyms answeredasked 2026-10-22gbif.vernacular answeredasked 2026-10-22names fetched 2026-10-22wcvp.distribution answeredas of 2026-06-04gbif.occurrences answeredas of 2026-10-21GBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.hbdw64, of 2026-10-21; 24 records within 1 km of a botanic garden, herbarium or zoo left out (3 at a botanic garden or arboretum, 3 at a herbarium, 18 at a zoo; Wikidata's list)climate answeredasked 2026-10-22climate.extremes answeredasked 2026-10-22NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 10.50_76.875, lapse-corrected +179 m at 6.5 °C/kmwikidata answeredasked 2026-10-22wikipedia answeredasked 2026-10-22inat.photos.wild answeredasked 2026-10-22from iNaturalist's open data of 2026-09-27: research-grade observations with an open-licence photograph, the 24 whose photographs iNaturalist received last (the open data holds no votes); filled 2026-10-22inat.photos.cultivated not askedgbif.media answeredasked 2026-10-22openalex not askednot yet asked for this reference; a later fill takes the papers from OpenAlex's snapshotEvery source is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, refused, failed, not been asked, or answered twice where one answer is taken (“not taken: two items answered”), and, for a source asked when this page was built, when: the figures are as the source held them that day; a source read from a file (Kew's World Checklist, a GBIF download) says "as of" the file's day instead; a row carried from an earlier build of the page names that build instead. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 43 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.