This paper reviews and discusses the technical terms and definition of mangrove and mangal, as well as mangrove plant. The word mangrove has been used to refer either to the constituent plant of tropical and subtropical intertidal community or to the community itself, but this usage makes more confusion. Being leaved mangrove in the more limited sense for the constituent plant species, mangal was proposed by MacNae (1968) as a term for mangrove community, which has been universally applied to most previous studies and should be adopted now. Mangrove should be therefore defined as a tropical and subtropical tree restricted to intertidal zones, which possesses some morphological specializion and physiological mechanism adapted to its habitat, and mangal as a tropical and subtropical forest community restricted to marine intertidal zones and periodically inundeated by the tides. A new term "consortive plant" is proposed here for herb, liana, epiphyte or parasite, which is restricted in the strict mangrove habitat.
