Agave polianthiflora, Sahuaripa, Son., México

Agave polianthiflora Gentry

Taiehcholi

Climate known 4 photographs Cactus or succulent

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 polianthiflora is a relatively small member of the genus Agave, in the subfamily Agavoideae, endemic to northern Mexico.

Text from Wikipedia, “Agave polianthiflora”, 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

Gentry

Native to

Mexico Northeast, Mexico Northwest

Wild records

59 in range· 38 open

At a glance

Warmest month

30°C

Jun, mean day; nights 15 °C (CHELSA)

Rain

894mm/yr

9 wet months · peak Jul 252 mm (CHELSA)

Light

24–52DLI

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 September in the northern hemisphere (June to September at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 894 mm a year, wettest July at 252 mm, driest April at 14 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 24 to 52 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -3.8 °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 September in the northern hemisphere (June to September 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 (645 mm of 894 mm) falls in June to September, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 21.1 °C against a yearly mean of 15.6 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: December to March.

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 894 mm a year, wettest July at 252 mm, driest April at 14 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

894 mm a year at the habitat, 645 mm of it June to September. Wettest month July at 252 mm, driest April at 14 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 484 mm to 1056 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: 24 to 52 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 24 to 52 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 23, the highest 90th-percentile month 52).

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 -3.8 °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 -3.8 °C, the absolute minimum -9.3 °C, about 29 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 36.4 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 2.0 °C in January (across the envelope cells 0.3 °C to 3.7 °C), warmest day 30.1 °C in June (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -3.8 °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: 41 to 61% 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

day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 44 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

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
Day °C	16 / 14–18	17 / 15–20	20 / 18–23	24 / 22–26	27 / 25–30	30 / 28–33	28 / 25–31	27 / 25–30	26 / 24–29	24 / 21–26	20 / 18–22	16 / 14–19
Night °C	2 / 0–4	3 / 1–4	4 / 2–6	7 / 5–10	10 / 8–14	15 / 12–18	15 / 13–19	15 / 13–19	14 / 12–17	10 / 8–12	6 / 4–7	3 / 1–4
Rain mm	46 / 19–58	36 / 9–41	21 / 10–27	14 / 9–16	15 / 7–21	70 / 29–87	252 / 116–299	212 / 106–248	111 / 70–146	43 / 32–57	28 / 10–34	46 / 13–60
DLI	26 / 25–28	32 / 31–34	42 / 40–43	48 / 47–49	52 / 51–52	48 / 47–49	40 / 38–44	38 / 37–41	37 / 36–38	34 / 33–35	28 / 27–30	24 / 23–26
RH %	49 / 47–53	47 / 45–51	44 / 43–48	42 / 40–45	41 / 40–43	47 / 43–49	60 / 52–62	61 / 55–62	57 / 53–59	51 / 49–53	48 / 46–52	49 / 46–53

Each figure is the median across the 44 grid cells holding the 55 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 1230:1430 (28.475, -108.475). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -9.3 °C, 1st-percentile night -3.8 °C, 99th-percentile day 36.4 °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 44 distinct grid cells holding the 55 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1230:1430 (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 28.50_-108.750, lapse-corrected +228 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 1660 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.

NativeMexico Northeast, Mexico Northwest

Kew's description“succulent perennial” · “desert or dry shrubland”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here

Map marker28.407, -108.594 · in the densest population, 51 records (86% of those in range)

Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 59 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 38 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 12 km away. 4 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 59 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Photographs: (c) Enrique Martínez Núñez, some rights reserved (CC BY); Enrique Martínez Núñez, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF; Jonathan Rodriguez, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF.

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

El endemismo en las Liliopsida mexicanas

Adolfo Espejo‐Serna (2017) · Acta Botanica Mexicana

Phylogeny, Diversification Rate, and Divergence Time of Agave sensu lato (Asparagaceae), a Group of Recent Origin in the Process of Diversification

Ofelia Jiménez-Barrón, Ricardo García-Sandoval, Susana Magallón, Abisaí García-Mendoza (2020) · Frontiers in Plant Science

Una nueva especie de Agave del subgénero Littaea (Agavaceae) de la Sierra Madre Oriental, México

Sergio Zamudio Ruiz, Emiliano Sánchez Martínez (1995) · Acta Botanica Mexicana

Vegetation and flora of the Mountain Pima village of Nabogame, Chihuahua, Mexico

Joseph A Laferriere (1994) · Biodiversity Heritage Library (Smithsonian Institution)

Conservación in situ y ex situ de las agaváceas y nolináceas mexicanas

Irma Sonia Franco-Martínez (1995) · Botanical Sciences

Agave parviflora subspecies densiflora

Greg Starr, Thomas R. Van Devender (2011) · Cactus and Succulent Journal

Mezcales y otras delicias destiladas de la Sierra Madre Occidental

Ricardo Quirino-Olvera, Martha González-Elizondo, Arturo Castro‐Castro (2024) · Revista Ciencia UANL

Occurrence Download