Species
+

Agave titanota Gentry

Asparagaceae

Climate known 1 photograph 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 titanota, the chalk agave, is a species of flowering plant in the family Asparagaceae. It is a medium-sized evergreen succulent perennial native to Oaxaca, Mexico. It often reaches 1-2 feet tall and 2-3 feet wide.

Text from Wikipedia, “Agave titanota”, 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 Central, Mexico Southwest
Wild records
21 in range· 15 open

At a glance

Warmest month
29°C
Apr, mean day; nights 15 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
669mm/yr
6 wet months · peak Jun 138 mm (CHELSA)
Light
28–45DLI
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 669 mm a year, wettest June at 138 mm, driest January at 9 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 28 to 45 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 5.0 °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 (495 mm of 669 mm) falls in June to September, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 21.1 °C against a yearly mean of 20.1 °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 669 mm a year, wettest June at 138 mm, driest January at 9 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

669 mm a year at the habitat, 495 mm of it June to September. Wettest month June at 138 mm, driest January at 9 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 500 mm to 1086 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: 28 to 45 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 28 to 45 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 26, the highest 90th-percentile month 46).

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 5.0 °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 5.0 °C, the absolute minimum -2.0 °C, 3 frost nights in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 35.5 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 10.8 °C in January (across the envelope cells 6.6 °C to 15.5 °C), warmest day 29.4 °C in April (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 5.0 °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: 55 to 65% 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 24 °C in Jan to 29 °C in Apr; mean night from 11 °C in Jan to 16 °C in Jun. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 669 mm of rain a year, most in Jun. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 10 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -2.0 °C and the 99th-percentile day 35.5 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-10°10°20°30°40°frost35.5° 99th-percentile day (undated)-2.0° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter050100150200250mm rainDLI 28–45RH 55–65 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 10 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 °C24 / 20–2626 / 21–2828 / 24–3129 / 25–3229 / 24–3226 / 22–2926 / 20–2826 / 21–2925 / 20–2825 / 20–2725 / 20–2724 / 20–26
Night °C11 / 7–1611 / 7–1613 / 9–1815 / 10–1916 / 12–2116 / 12–2115 / 11–2016 / 11–2016 / 12–2015 / 10–1913 / 8–1812 / 7–16
Rain mm9 / 6–219 / 7–219 / 8–1921 / 17–4054 / 44–80138 / 114–194123 / 84–213114 / 81–193120 / 89–19348 / 33–9015 / 8–449 / 5–26
DLI30 / 28–3335 / 33–3842 / 40–4445 / 44–4643 / 43–4438 / 37–4039 / 37–4138 / 37–4034 / 32–3633 / 30–3530 / 28–3328 / 26–32
RH %59 / 56–6157 / 54–6055 / 52–5856 / 53–5758 / 57–6063 / 61–6663 / 61–6763 / 60–6765 / 62–6864 / 60–6662 / 58–6460 / 56–63

Each figure is the median across the 10 grid cells holding the 18 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 1458:1665 (17.075, -96.725). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -2.0 °C, 1st-percentile night 5.0 °C, 99th-percentile day 35.5 °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 10 distinct grid cells holding the 18 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1458:1665 (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 17.00_-96.875, lapse-corrected -367 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 1586 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 Central, Mexico Southwest
Kew's description“succulent perennial” · “seasonally dry tropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker18.161, -97.266 · in the densest population, 21 records (100% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 21 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 15 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker in the same place. 1 record outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 3 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 21 in-range records; it decides nothing.

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 titanota, 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
Riqueza de las familias Agavaceae y Nolinaceae en México
Abisaí García-Mendoza, Raquel Galván-V. (1995) · Botanical Sciences
Sociocultural and ecological factors influencing management of edible and non-edible plants: the case of Ixcatlán, Mexico
Selene Rangel-Landa, Alejandro Casas, Eduardo Garcı́a-Frapolli, Rafael Lira (2017) · Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine
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
A synopsis of feral Agave and Furcraea (Agavaceae, Asparagaceae s. lat.) in the Canary Islands (Spain)
Filip Verloove, Joachim Thiede, Águedo Marrero Rodríguez, Marcos Salas Pascual (2019) · Plant Ecology and Evolution
Feasibility of Agave as a feedstock for biofuel production in Australia
Joseph A. M. Holtum, Chambers Don (2010) · ResearchOnline at James Cook University (James Cook University)
Conservación in situ y ex situ de las agaváceas y nolináceas mexicanas
Irma Sonia Franco-Martínez (1995) · Botanical Sciences
Distribución de la cobertura vegetal y del uso del terreno del municipio de Zapotitlán, Puebla, México
Mayra Mónica Herández-Moreno, Oswaldo Téllez Valdes, Enrique Martínez‐Meyer, Luis Alfredo Islas-Saldaña (2021) · Revista Mexicana de Biodiversidad
A distinctive new species of Thelocactus (Cactaceae) from Oaxaca, Mexico
Tristan J. Davis, Héctor M. Hernández, Greg Starr, Carlos Gómez-Hinostrosa (2018) · Phytotaxa
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility

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 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)
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 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)
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 9 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.