Species
+

Agave havardiana Trel.

Harvard agave, Havard agave, Havard's 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 havardiana is a plant species native to the Big Bend area of western Texas as well as Chihuahua and Coahuila. It prefers grassy to rocky slopes or woodlands at elevations of 1200–2000 m.

Text from Wikipedia, “Agave havardiana”, 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
Trel.
Native to
Texas, Mexico Northeast
Wild records
643 in range· 176 open

At a glance

Warmest month
31°C
Jun, mean day; nights 18 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
442mm/yr
6 wet months · peak Aug 77 mm (CHELSA)
Light
23–49DLI
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 summer growing season, June to October in the northern hemisphere (June to October at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 442 mm a year, wettest August at 77 mm, driest March at 12 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 23 to 49 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -5.7 °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.

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 summer growing season, June to October in the northern hemisphere (June to October at the habitat, northern).

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

The rain rule reads a summer growing season: 70% of the year's rain (313 mm of 442 mm) falls in June to October, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 22.4 °C against a yearly mean of 16.9 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: December to April.

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 442 mm a year, wettest August at 77 mm, driest March at 12 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

442 mm a year at the habitat, 313 mm of it June to October. Wettest month August at 77 mm, driest March at 12 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 352 mm to 557 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: 23 to 49 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 23 to 49 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 21, the highest 90th-percentile month 50).

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 -5.7 °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 -5.7 °C, the absolute minimum -13.6 °C, about 39 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 38.8 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 2.4 °C in January (across the envelope cells 0.3 °C to 5.7 °C), warmest day 31.2 °C in June (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -5.7 °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: 42 to 54% 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 16 °C in Jan to 31 °C in Jun; mean night from 2 °C in Jan to 19 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 442 mm of rain a year, most in Aug. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 79 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -13.6 °C and the 99th-percentile day 38.8 °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°frost38.8° 99th-percentile day (undated)-13.6° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0255075100mm rainDLI 23–49RH 42–54 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 79 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 °C16 / 13–1918 / 16–2222 / 19–2526 / 23–2929 / 26–3331 / 29–3430 / 27–3429 / 26–3327 / 24–3124 / 21–2820 / 17–2316 / 13–19
Night °C2 / 0–64 / 2–87 / 5–1011 / 8–1415 / 13–1918 / 16–2219 / 16–2219 / 16–2216 / 13–2012 / 10–157 / 5–103 / 1–6
Rain mm17 / 13–2014 / 9–1812 / 9–1620 / 15–2738 / 27–5760 / 44–7976 / 60–10077 / 56–9658 / 42–7542 / 35–5015 / 11–1813 / 10–19
DLI25 / 24–2731 / 30–3340 / 38–4146 / 45–4749 / 47–5048 / 46–4945 / 44–4642 / 41–4337 / 36–3932 / 31–3426 / 25–2823 / 21–25
RH %48 / 47–5046 / 44–4943 / 40–4742 / 39–4645 / 41–4948 / 45–5252 / 49–5453 / 50–5554 / 50–5650 / 48–5347 / 46–5048 / 46–50

Each figure is the median across the 79 grid cells holding the 556 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 1192:1527 (30.375, -103.625). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -13.6 °C, 1st-percentile night -5.7 °C, 99th-percentile day 38.8 °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 79 distinct grid cells holding the 556 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1192:1527 (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 30.50_-103.750, lapse-corrected -30 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 1363 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.
NativeTexas, Mexico Northeast
Kew's description“succulent perennial” · “desert or dry shrubland”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker29.276, -103.303 · in the densest population, 627 records (98% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 643 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 176 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker in the same place. 1 record outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 87 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 643 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Agave havardianaAgave havardianaAgave havardianaAgave havardianaAgave havardianaAgave havardianaAgave havardianaAgave havardiana

Photographs: (c) Rosario Douglas, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Anders Hastings, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) EJ Burns, some rights reserved (CC BY); no rights reserved · CC0; (c) Eric Knight, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3); (c) Cody Stricker, some rights reserved (CC BY).

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 havardiana, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

The evolution of bat pollination: a phylogenetic perspective
Theodore H. Fleming, Cullen Geiselman, W. John Kress (2009) · Annals of Botany
Stress-Tolerant Feedstocks for Sustainable Bioenergy Production on Marginal Land
Lauren D. Quinn, Kaitlin C. Straker, Jia Guo, S. Kim (2015) · BioEnergy Research
Climate change, range shifts, and the disruption of a pollinator-plant complex
Emma Gómez‐Ruiz, Thomas E. Lacher (2019) · Scientific Reports
El endemismo en las Liliopsida mexicanas
Adolfo Espejo‐Serna (2017) · Acta Botanica Mexicana
Carbon isotope composition of plant photosynthetic tissues reflects a Crassulacean Acid Metabolism (CAM) continuum in the majority of CAM lineages
Thibaud F.E. Messerschmid, Judith Wehling, Nadine Bobon, Ansgar Kahmen (2021) · Perspectives in Plant Ecology Evolution and Systematics
El elemento endémico de la flora vascular del Desierto Chihuahuense
José ́Ángel Villarreal-Quintanilla, Jenry A. Bartolomé-Hernández, Eduardo Estrada‐Castillón, Homero Ramírez (2017) · Acta Botanica Mexicana
Development of Agave as a dedicated biomass source: production of biofuels from whole plants
Jonathan R. Mielenz, Miguel Rodríguez‐Barranco, Olivia Thompson, Xiaohan Yang (2015) · Biotechnology for Biofuels
Factors affecting nectar sugar composition in chiropterophilic plants
Nelly Rodríguez‐Peña, Kathryn E. Stoner, César M. Flores-Ortíz, Jorge Ayala‐Berdón (2016) · Revista Mexicana de Biodiversidad
Biogeographic units in the Chihuahuan Desert: Implications for regionalization and area nomenclature
Juan J. Morrone, Roxana Acosta, Jesús A. Fernández (2022) · Revista Mexicana de Biodiversidad
Census of the endangered Mexican long-nosed bat Leptonycteris nivalis in Texas, USA, using thermal imaging
LK Ammerman, Molly M. McDonough, N. I. Hristov, TH Kunz (2008) · Endangered Species Research

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 15 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.