# Grey mangrove (Avicennia marina)

> The world's most widespread and most cold-tolerant mangrove, a shrub or small tree of 2 to 12 m with grey-backed leathery leaves and carpets of pencil-like breathing roots (pneumatophores) rising from the mud. It is the only mangrove in New Zealand and the commonest in New South Wales, and it stabilises shorelines and nurses fish from Kenya to Victoria. It is planted in mangrove restoration across Africa, the Gulf and Asia; in some New Zealand harbours it is spreading onto sediment-choked flats and is locally cleared.

Source: https://treerm.org/trees/avicennia-marina · Updated 2026-11-08 · License CC BY 4.0

## Facts

- Also called: White mangrove, Mānawa, Manawa
- Family: Acanthaceae
- Type: Broadleaf evergreen
- Mature height: 10 m; spread 8 m
- Growth: Slow growing
- Light: Full sun
- Water: Needs steady water
- Soil: Intertidal mud, silt or sand in estuaries and sheltered bays; salt water
- Native range: Native to tropical and warm-temperate coasts of the Indian Ocean and western Pacific: East Africa and the Red Sea, Arabia, India, South-East Asia, southern China, Australia (all mainland states) and northern New Zealand.

**Benefits:** Holds soil, Salt tolerant, Flood tolerant, Stores carbon well, Wildlife, Birds, Storm resistant

**Good for:** Streambanks, Reforestation

**Watch out for:** No major cautions

## Care

Plant ripe floating fruit or seedlings into mud at mid-tide level; it needs no care but is frost tender when young. Growth is slow. Do not plant outside its natural range (it has been deliberately spread in NZ) and check mangrove protection laws before clearing or planting.

## Where it stands

- **Native:** United Arab Emirates; NSW, Australia (Most common and widespread mangrove in NSW); NT, Australia; QLD, Australia; SA, Australia; VIC, Australia; WA, Australia; Egypt (Red Sea); India; Kenya; Mozambique; New Zealand (Subsp. australasica, Parengarenga Harbour south to Kawhia and Ohiwa; spreading in some sediment-laden harbours and removed from sites where it was planted outside its range); Saudi Arabia; Tanzania; South Africa

## Sources

- https://www.nzpcn.org.nz/flora/species/avicennia-marina-subsp-australasica/
- https://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Avicennia~marina
- https://www.gbif.org/species/2925403