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Rosaceae family

Loquat Eriobotrya japonica

Late-season nectar — Flowers in a late-autumn window when few other plants in our catalog bloom — valuable late forage for pollinators (relative to our catalog's bloom coverage).

Loquat is an introduced perennial tree, found in Hawaii, the lower 48 states, and Puerto Rico. It grows to 20 ft and blooms Nov.

More about this plant

The loquat is a large evergreen shrub or tree grown commercially for its orange coloured fruits. It is also cultivated as an ornamental plant. Wikipedia →

⚠ Invasive here — plant a native instead USDA + GBIF

Loquat is flagged invasive in the U.S. These natives fill a similar niche — same growth habit, bloom season, height, and region — so you keep the look and feed local wildlife instead of spreading a problem.

Sweet Acacia
Native
Sweet Acacia
Vachellia farnesiana
●●●●○
Jerusalem Thorn
Native
Jerusalem Thorn
Parkinsonia aculeata
●●○○○
Mexican Tea
Native
Mexican Tea
Dysphania ambrosioides
●○○○○
American Burnweed
Native
American Burnweed
Erechtites hieraciifolius
●○○○○
Matched on growth habit · bloom months · mature height · shared U.S. range (USDA + GBIF) — a starting point, not a prescription.

Growing & care

USDA PLANTS · TRY
Conditions
Sources · Conditions
Cold hardiness (derived) — Hardiness
Niinemets & Valladares 2006 (CC0) — Drought tolerance · Shade tolerance · Wet-soil tolerance
Hardiness
≥ zone 9 derived from its U.S. range
Drought tolerance
Moderate
Shade tolerance
Moderate
Wet-soil tolerance
Low waterlogging
Size & form
Sources · Size & form
TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0) — Height · Foliage
USDA Urban Tree DB (public domain) — open-grown crown width — Mature width
USDA PLANTS — Lifespan
Height
20 ft
Mature width
≈ 30 ft wide open-grown, the broad end of measured crowns
Lifespan
Perennial
Foliage
Evergreen broadleaf
In the garden
Sub-canopy / understory layer — Sits in the understory of a layered food forest or polyculture.Open guide →
derived roles
The garden year bloom → fruit → fall colour
J
F
M
A
M
J
J
A
S
O
N
D
Bloom
Bloom (the flower's colour)
Bloom · Nov — 11 obs · Herbarium specimens — Park et al. 2023 (CC BY 4.0)
Species characteristics from USDA PLANTS (public domain) + TRY (CC BY) — general guidance, not a guarantee for your exact site. Deer "browsing" is documented palatability, not a deer-proof claim.

Wildlife & pollinators

How pollinator value is scored →
❧ Caterpillar hosts Documented caterpillar host
Named species (a documented Nearctic sample, not exhaustive) from NHM HOSTS (CC0). ✦ = recorded on this exact species.
✦ Bees 6 bee visitors
Visitor records (observations, not exhaustive) from Noori et al. 2026 (CC BY 4.0) · GloBI →
Wildlife & visitors 20 birds · 2 mammals · 12 nectaring

Open records of who else uses Loquat — a generalist food-web signal, kept separate from the keystone Ecological Value.

12 adult butterfly & moth species are recorded nectaring at its flowers — the most-recorded:

Vanessa atalanta · Red Admiral Aellopos clavipes · Clavipes Sphinx Syntomeida epilais · Oleander Moth Vanessa cardui · Painted Lady Danaus plexippus · Monarch Danaus gilippus · Queen
Interaction records (observations, not exhaustive) from GloBI → (CC0). Counts are distinct species; names are the most-recorded. Common names from Wikidata (CC0).
Species thumbnails re-hosted from iNaturalist — Creative Commons, credited per image (hover for credit). Click any species to see it on iNaturalist. Not exhaustive; many taxa have no openly-licensed photo yet.
How we know this (2) Methods & honest limits
Leaf build Direct fact

We read each species’ measured specific leaf area (leaf area per unit dry weight) from the Global Spectrum dataset and band it: thin & fast (high SLA), medium, or thick & tough (low SLA). The global median is about 10 mm²/mg.

Honest limits: A species-mean from pooled measurements — individual plants vary with light and site. A broad strategy signal, not a precise per-plant figure.

Díaz, S. et al. (2022) The global spectrum of plant form and function: enhanced species-level trait dataset. Scientific Data 9:755.
Photosynthesis Direct fact

A recorded categorical fact: each species is tagged C3 (standard), C4 (heat/water-efficient) or CAM (succulent, night-time CO₂ uptake) — or a facultative combination. We only show a trait card for the noteworthy C4/CAM cases; C3 is the unremarkable majority, kept in the data but not surfaced as a card.

Kattge, J. et al. TRY plant trait database — Categorical Traits Dataset (2012).
Derived values are computed from open data by a published method — labelled, cited, and never shown as a direct observation. Full methodology →
Sources for this entry (23) Open & cited
[01] Scientific name & family — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[02] Growth habit & duration — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[03] Native status & distribution — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[04] Common name — USDA PLANTS (via GBIF)
[05] Invasive / introduced status — US-RIIS v2.0 (USGS)
[06] Wetland indicator — USACE National Wetland Plant List (2022)
[08] Description — Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
[09] Ecological value — GloBI
[13] Functional traits — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)
[14] Photosynthetic pathway — TRY Plant Trait Database (CC BY 4.0)
[15] Cold hardiness (derived) — Derived from U.S. range × USDA PHZM zones
[16] Wildlife & visitors — GloBI — Global Biotic Interactions (CC0)
[20] Stress tolerance — Niinemets & Valladares 2006 (CC0)
[22] Flower-visitor value (derived) — Noori et al. 2026 (CC BY 4.0) · GloBI
[23] Caterpillar species — NHM HOSTS (CC0)
Spot an error or have a better photo? Every field links to its source, and the whole dataset is open.
Cite this page Open data, please attribute

PlantKey’s data is open under CC BY-SA 4.0 — free to reuse and adapt, with attribution and the same licence. Photos keep their own per-image licence + credit (see Sources above).

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