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Polyscias maraisiana; photograph (c) Emanuele Santarelli, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) CC BY-SA(c) Emanuele Santarelli, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) · observed growing wild · 2024-04-23

Polyscias maraisiana Lowry & G.M.Plunkett

Araliaceae · Mauritius · listed by its genus as a tropical foliage plant

No habitat climate
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Polyscias maraisiana, photograph (c) Matthew Morgan, some rights reserved (CC BY)Polyscias maraisiana, photograph (c) Matthew Morgan, some rights reserved (CC BY)Polyscias maraisiana, photograph (c) Matthew Morgan, some rights reserved (CC BY)Polyscias maraisiana, photograph (c) Matthew Morgan, some rights reserved (CC BY)Polyscias maraisiana, photograph (c) Emanuele Santarelli, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA)Polyscias maraisiana, photograph (c) Emanuele Santarelli, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) 14 photographs ›

Summary

Polyscias maraisiana is a species of plant in the family Araliaceae, formerly named Gastonia mauritiana.

Quoted from Wikipedia, "Polyscias maraisiana", CC BY-SA 4.0.

About the genus · Polyscias

Polyscias is a genus of flowering plants in the family Araliaceae with a natural distribution from tropical Africa through Southeast Asia and Australia to islands of the Pacific. As of February 2026, Plants of the World Online recognises 28 synonyms and about 180 species for the genus.

Quoted from Wikipedia, "Polyscias", CC BY-SA 4.0.

Cultivation

Grouped as a tropical foliage plant, listed under the genus Polyscias in the archetype table, and Kew describes it as “shrub or tree”, “wet tropical”.

Nothing derived: no habitat climate for this species.
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.

Group. Listed under the genus Polyscias in the archetype table, and Kew describes it as “shrub or tree”, “wet tropical”. A group is taken only where Kew's description of the species agrees with the table's listing. The table gives no figure and no prose; the cold floor is the habitat's alone.

Climate across the habitat

No habitat climate can be derived: 16 in-range records, none placed to within 10 km. 16 of the 16 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km, or to no stated accuracy and fewer than three decimals or by something other than a person's observation, and cannot place a climate cell, though they count for the map and its marker.

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeMauritius · regions are the level-3 units of the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions, as Kew's World Checklist records ranges, some under historical names such as Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia (how).
Map marker-20.442, 57.657 · in the densest population, 16 records (100% of those in range)
Kew's description“shrub or tree” · “wet tropical” · quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Evidence usedThe map marker rests on all 16 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 6 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 8 km away. 8 records outside the WCVP native range not used. No climate across the range is derived for this species. 16 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km, or with no stated accuracy (admitted only as a person's observation to three decimals), and stay on the map but off the climate.
How this section is made
The map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population of the 16 in-range records; it decides nothing. Records outside the native range, living specimens and records marked introduced are not used; which records count.

Photographs

Polyscias maraisiana, photograph 1did not loadPolyscias maraisiana, photograph 2did not loadPolyscias maraisiana, photograph 3did not loadPolyscias maraisiana, photograph 4did not loadPolyscias maraisiana, photograph 5did not loadPolyscias maraisiana, photograph 6did not load

Photographs: (c) Matthew Morgan, some rights reserved (CC BY) (4); (c) Emanuele Santarelli, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) (2).

Other Polyscias 18 in the reference

Polyscias balfouriana Polyscias balfouriana Balfour Aralia Photo: CC BY-SA, Ong Jyh SengPolyscias crenata Polyscias crenata Araliaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, vanessa_147Polyscias cumingiana Polyscias cumingiana Fern-leaf aralia Photo: CC BY-SA, MokkiePolyscias cutispongia Polyscias cutispongia Araliaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, YoliPolyscias elegans Polyscias elegans Mowbulan whitewood Photo: CC BY-SA, Greg TasneyPolyscias filicifolia Polyscias filicifolia Araliaceae Photo: CC BY, Forest & Kim StarrPolyscias fruticosa Polyscias fruticosa Ming aralia Photo: CC BY, Diogo LuizPolyscias fulva Polyscias fulva Araliaceae Photo: CC BY, jeanjacquesgodonPolyscias guilfoylei Polyscias guilfoylei Geranium aralia Photo: CC BY, Tara SevernsPolyscias hawaiensis Polyscias hawaiensis Hawai'i 'ohe Photo: Public domain, Daderot Polyscias lallanii Araliaceae Polyscias murrayi Polyscias murrayi Pencil Cedar Photo: CC BY, Max Campbell all 19 ›

Names & registers

Also known as Gastonia elegans; Gastonia mauritiana; Terminalia elegans. (GBIF Backbone)

GBIFPOWOIPNIWFOWikidataWikipediaiNaturalist

The record

Family
Araliaceae
Described by
Lowry & G.M.Plunkett
Native to
Mauritius
Wild records
16 in range · 6 open

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 record gbif.species answeredasked 2026-10-22
GBIF synonyms gbif.synonyms answeredasked 2026-10-22
GBIF common names gbif.vernacular answeredasked 2026-10-22names fetched 2026-10-22
WCVP native range wcvp.distribution answeredas of 2026-06-04
GBIF occurrence records gbif.occurrences answeredas of 2026-10-21GBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.hbdw64, of 2026-10-21; 1 record within 1 km of a botanic garden, herbarium or zoo left out (1 at a botanic garden or arboretum; Wikidata's list)
Habitat climate climate nothing to reportasked 2026-10-2216 in-range records, none placed to within 10 km
Wikidata wikidata answeredasked 2026-10-22
Wikipedia wikipedia answeredasked 2026-10-22
iNaturalist photographs, wild inat.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 2026-10-22
iNaturalist photographs, cultivated inat.photos.cultivated not asked
GBIF media gbif.media answeredasked 2026-10-22none of the photographs on this page is credited to GBIF: those shown are other sources', and GBIF's were the same photographs or were set aside by the photograph rules
OpenAlex papers openalex not askednot yet asked for this reference; a later fill takes the papers from OpenAlex's snapshot

Every 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 7 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.

Cultifolio

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