Species
+

Agave chrysantha Peebles

Golden-flowered Agave, golden flowered agave, golden-flower agave, goldenflower century plant

Climate known 61 photographs Cactus or succulent
Add one to my plants Sow seed

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Agave chrysantha, the golden-flowered century plant, is a plant species endemic to Arizona. The species is distinguished by its bright yellow flowers, born on a flowering stalk up to 7 m tall.

Text from Wikipedia, “Agave chrysantha”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Agave

Agave is a genus of monocots native to the arid regions of the Americas. The genus is primarily known for its succulent and xerophytic species that typically form large rosettes of strong, fleshy leaves.

Text from Wikipedia, “Agave”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Asparagaceae
Described by
Peebles
Native to
Arizona
Wild records
540 in range· 124 open

At a glance

Warmest month
34°C
Jul, mean day; nights 21 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
469mm/yr
9 wet months · peak Aug 71 mm (CHELSA)
Light
20–54DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Grouped as a cactus or succulent by the genus Agave, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a winter growing season, December to March and July to September in the northern hemisphere (December to March and July to September at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 469 mm a year, wettest August at 71 mm, driest June at 7 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 20 to 54 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -4.2 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Agave palmeri subsp. chrysantha (Peebles) B.Ullrich; Agave palmeri var. chrysantha (Peebles) Little; Agave palmeri var. chrysantha (Peebles) Little ex Benson.

Cultivation

Grouped as a cactus or succulent by the genus Agave, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). The table holds no figure for this group, which spans too much for one minimum; the cold floor is the habitat's alone, and no prose comes from the table.

Its year Rain rule: a winter growing season, December to March and July to September in the northern hemisphere (December to March and July to September at the habitat, northern).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads a winter growing season: 70% of the year's rain (369 mm of 469 mm) falls in December to March and July to September, cooler than the year (wet-season mean 15.6 °C against a yearly mean of 16.6 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: January to March and June to September.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 469 mm a year, wettest August at 71 mm, driest June at 7 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

469 mm a year at the habitat, 369 mm of it December to March and July to September. Wettest month August at 71 mm, driest June at 7 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 367 mm to 591 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 20 to 54 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 20 to 54 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 18, the highest 90th-percentile month 54).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor -4.2 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is -4.2 °C, the absolute minimum -16.2 °C, about 37 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 40.8 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 0.5 °C in January (across the envelope cells -2.1 °C to 3.4 °C), warmest day 34.0 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -4.2 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 35 to 50% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 13 °C in Dec to 34 °C in Jul; mean night from 1 °C in Jan to 21 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 469 mm of rain a year, most in Aug. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 203 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -16.2 °C and the 99th-percentile day 40.8 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-20°-10°10°20°30°40°50°frost40.8° 99th-percentile day (undated)-16.2° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0255075100mm rainDLI 20–54RH 35–50 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 203 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C14 / 11–1615 / 12–1818 / 15–2123 / 20–2628 / 25–3133 / 30–3634 / 31–3733 / 29–3630 / 27–3325 / 22–2718 / 15–2113 / 10–16
Night °C1 / -2–32 / -1–44 / 1–77 / 4–1112 / 9–1617 / 14–2121 / 17–2420 / 17–2316 / 13–2011 / 8–145 / 2–81 / -2–3
Rain mm52 / 35–6551 / 35–6348 / 32–6118 / 12–2710 / 7–147 / 3–1056 / 37–8671 / 51–9542 / 31–5632 / 24–4233 / 23–4349 / 36–60
DLI22 / 20–2428 / 26–3037 / 36–3947 / 46–4852 / 51–5354 / 53–5447 / 46–4843 / 41–4339 / 38–4031 / 30–3324 / 22–2620 / 18–22
RH %50 / 47–5349 / 46–5246 / 43–4940 / 37–4437 / 34–4135 / 33–3845 / 42–4748 / 45–5045 / 42–4744 / 42–4746 / 43–4949 / 46–52

Each figure is the median across the 203 grid cells holding the 520 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 1132:1384 (33.375, -110.775). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -16.2 °C, 1st-percentile night -4.2 °C, 99th-percentile day 40.8 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 203 distinct grid cells holding the 520 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1132:1384 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 33.50_-110.625, lapse-corrected -119 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 1155 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeArizona
Kew's description“succulent perennial” · “desert or dry shrubland”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker33.865, -111.473 · in the densest population, 533 records (99% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 540 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 124 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 20 km away. 20 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population of the 540 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Agave chrysanthaAgave chrysanthaAgave chrysanthaAgave chrysanthaAgave chrysanthaAgave chrysanthaAgave chrysanthaAgave chrysantha

Photographs: (c) Sue Ann Kendall, some rights reserved (CC BY); no rights reserved · CC0 (4); (c) Mark Pollock, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Indio Brown, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2).

Photographs: iNaturalist and Wikimedia Commons did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Agave chrysantha, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Diurnal and nocturnal pollination of Silene alba (Caryophyllaceae)
Helen J. Young (2002) · American Journal of Botany
Pollination biology of two chiropterophilous agaves in Arizona
Liz A. Slauson (2000) · American Journal of Botany
Pollination ecology of Agave macroacantha (Agavaceae) in a Mexican tropical desert. I. Floral biology and pollination mechanisms
Santiago Arizaga, Exequiel Ezcurra, Edward M. Peters, Fernando Ramírez de Arellano (2000) · American Journal of Botany
Floral trait associations in hawkmoth-specialized and mixed pollination systems
Jeffrey A. Riffell, Rubén Alarcón, Leif Abrell (2008) · Communicative & Integrative Biology
THE POLLINATION BIOLOGY OF PANICULATE AGAVES: DOCUMENTING THE IMPORTANCE OF MALE FITNESS IN PLANTS.
Steven D. Sutherland (1982) · UA Campus Repository (The University of Arizona)
Pre-contact Agave domesticates – living legacy plants in Arizona’s landscape
Wendy C. Hodgson, E. Rosenthal, Andrew M. Salywon (2023) · Annals of Botany
Consolidated stand tables and biodiversity data base for Southwestern forest habitat types /
Esteban Muldavin, Earl F. Aldon, Rocky Mountain Forest and Range Experiment Station (Fort Collins, Colo.), Frank. Ronco (1990)
New species of Corticiaceae (Basidiomycotina, Aphyllophorales) from Arizona
Harold H. Burdsall, R. L. Gilbertson (1982) · Mycotaxon
Vascular Plant and Vertebrate Inventory of Tonto National Monument
Eric W. Albrecht, Brian F. Powell, W.L. Halvorson, Cecilia A. Schmidt (2007) · Antarctica A Keystone in a Changing World

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

Other Agave 252 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zam
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive)
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 23 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.