---
title: White Mangrove (Avicennia marina)
scientific_name: Avicennia marina
common_name: White Mangrove
taxon: Mangrove
conservation_status: LC - Least Concern
published: 2023-12-25T23:57:08.620Z
updated: 2026-08-23T08:48:18.112Z
tags: White Mangrove, Avicennia marina, Mangrove, Red Sea, Marine Life, Diving
url: https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/sea-plants/mangrove/white-mangrove
---

# White Mangrove (*Avicennia marina*)

## Quick facts

- **Group:** Mangrove
- **Rarity:** Uncommon
- **Habitat:** Sheltered muddy shores, khors and lagoon edges
- **Conservation status:** LC - Least Concern

## How to recognise it

- gray-green leaves, pale and felted underneath
- forest of finger-thick vertical roots standing out of the mud around each tree
- salt crystals on the upper leaf surface, which taste of salt
- the only mangrove species on this coast

It drinks seawater, which no ordinary tree can do, and it deals with the salt in two ways at once.

Most of it is stopped at the root. The membranes exclude something like ninety-nine percent of the salt in the water taken up, which is filtration on a scale industrial plants need pressure and energy to achieve. What still gets through is pushed out through glands on the leaves, and it dries there as visible crystals: run a finger over the upper surface of a leaf and then taste it, and the tree's whole problem is on your tongue.

The second problem is mud. Waterlogged sediment holds almost no oxygen, so the roots cannot breathe, and this species solves it by growing pencil-thick vertical roots that stick up out of the mud around the trunk in their thousands. They are snorkels, open to the air at low tide and sealed by water at high.

On this coast it is the only mangrove there is, so the stands are single-species forest rather than the layered mangrove of wetter tropics. They hold the sediment, shelter juvenile fish, and support the herons, ospreys and crab populations of an otherwise bare shore.

## Also known as

- **English:** grey mangrove, Gray Mangrove, white mangrove
- **Hebrew:** אביסניה ימית
- **French:** Manglier gris, Palétuvier gris
- **Italian:** Mangrovia grigia
- **Polish:** mangrowiec szary
- **Japanese:** ヒルギダマシ
- **Chinese:** bai gu rang, 海樹仔, 海茄冬
- **Russian:** Авиценния морская (белый мангр)
- **AF:** witseebasboom
- **FI:** merimustamangrove
- **ID:** Api-Api Putih
- **MAR:** तिवर
- **MLG:** Afiafy
- **MSA:** Api-api Jambu, Api-api merah
- **SLK:** avicénia prímorská
- **TAM:** venkandan
- **TH:** แสมทะเล
- **XHO:** isikhungathi
- **ZUL:** isikaha-esimhlope

## Scientific synonyms

- *Avicennia intermedia* Griff.
- *Avicennia mindanaense* Elmer

## Range

Ariel Bay, Australia, Bahrain, Bais, Bangladesh, Brunei, China, Chouldari, Coral Sea, Djibouti, East Australian Coastal Province, Egypt, Eritrea, Federal Republic of Somalia, India, Indian Ocean, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Kenya, Korangi Creek, Madagascar, Malaysia, Maldives, Mayabunder, Minnie Bay, Mozambique, Myanmar, New Caledonian Exclusive Economic Zone, New Zealand, Oman, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Persian Gulf, Philippines, Qatar, Red Sea, Rongat Bay, Saudi Arabia, Seychelles, Sindh, Singapore, Sipighat junction, Solomon Islands, South Africa, South China Sea, South Pacific Ocean, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Taiwan, Tanzania, Tasman Sea, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, Uttara, Vanuatu, Vietnam, Western Indian Ocean, Yemen

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*Source: [Red Sea Creatures](https://redseacreatures.com/taxon/sea-plants/mangrove/white-mangrove)*
*Updated: August 23, 2026*