$Beaucarnea hiriartiae$ unknown, CC0, via GBIF · observed growing wild

Beaucarnea hiriartiae L.Hern.

Ponytail palm

Climate known 12 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

Beaucarnea hiriartiae is a plant in the family Asparagaceae, native to Mexico. The species is named for the botanist Patricia Hiriart Valencia.

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

About the genus · Beaucarnea

Beaucarnea is a genus of flowering plants native to Mexico and Central America. In the APG III classification system, it is placed in the family Asparagaceae, subfamily Convallarioideae. Beaucarnea is sometimes treated as a synonym of the genus Nolina, with the species being then transferred to that genus. More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Beaucarnea”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family

Asparagaceae

Described by

L.Hern.

Native to

Mexico Central, Mexico Southwest

Wild records

13 in range· 10 open

At a glance

Warmest month

33°C

Apr, mean day; nights 18 °C (CHELSA)

Rain

755mm/yr

6 wet months · peak Jul 150 mm (CHELSA)

Light

32–48DLI

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 Beaucarnea, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a rainy season, June to September in the northern hemisphere, at the year's mean temperature, so called neither winter nor summer. Habitat rain 755 mm a year, wettest July at 150 mm, driest December at 5 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 32 to 48 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 7.8 °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 Beaucarnea, 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 rainy season, June to September in the northern hemisphere, at the year's mean temperature, so called neither winter nor summer.

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

The rain rule reads a rainy season with no name: 70% of the year's rain (586 mm of 755 mm) falls in June to September, whose mean temperature, 24.0 °C, is within half a degree of the year's, 23.7 °C, so it is neither the cooler nor the warmer part of the year. 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 755 mm a year, wettest July at 150 mm, driest December at 5 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

755 mm a year at the habitat, 586 mm of it June to September. Wettest month July at 150 mm, driest December at 5 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 670 mm to 1407 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: 32 to 48 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 32 to 48 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 29, the highest 90th-percentile month 48).

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 7.8 °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 7.8 °C, the absolute minimum -2.0 °C, 1 frost night in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 38.5 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 14.5 °C in January (across the envelope cells 12.0 °C to 16.9 °C), warmest day 33.3 °C in April (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 7.8 °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: 49 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 9 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	28 / 25–31	30 / 26–32	32 / 28–35	33 / 30–36	32 / 29–36	29 / 26–32	28 / 25–31	29 / 26–32	28 / 25–30	28 / 25–31	29 / 25–31	28 / 25–31
Night °C	15 / 12–17	15 / 12–18	16 / 13–19	18 / 15–21	19 / 17–22	20 / 17–22	19 / 16–22	19 / 16–22	19 / 16–21	18 / 16–21	17 / 14–19	15 / 13–17
Rain mm	8 / 7–22	7 / 6–22	6 / 4–16	13 / 8–29	55 / 38–68	149 / 130–243	150 / 136–284	142 / 125–274	145 / 129–262	64 / 56–126	11 / 9–42	5 / 4–23
DLI	33 / 31–34	39 / 36–39	45 / 42–45	48 / 45–48	45 / 43–46	39 / 38–41	41 / 39–42	40 / 38–42	36 / 34–38	35 / 33–36	34 / 32–34	32 / 29–32
RH %	52 / 50–56	51 / 49–55	49 / 48–54	49 / 47–53	52 / 50–57	59 / 56–65	60 / 57–66	60 / 57–67	61 / 59–68	58 / 56–65	54 / 52–61	53 / 50–58

Each figure is the median across the 9 grid cells holding the 12 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 1440:1665 (17.975, -96.725). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -2.0 °C, 1st-percentile night 7.8 °C, 99th-percentile day 38.5 °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 9 distinct grid cells holding the 12 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1440:1665 (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 18.00_-96.875, lapse-corrected -507 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 900 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“tree” · “desert or dry shrubland”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here

Map marker17.75, -99.567 · in the densest population, 12 records (92% of those in range)

Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 13 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 10 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 2 km away. 1 in-range record is placed to worse than 10 km and stays 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 13 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Photographs: unknown, CC0, via GBIF (6); Conveyor Belt, CC0, via GBIF; The New York Botanical Garden, CC BY, 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 Beaucarnea hiriartiae, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Beaucarnea sanctomariana (Nolinaceae), a New Micro-Endemic Species of Ponytail Palm from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Oaxaca, Mexico

Luis Hernández‐Sandoval, Luis Hernández‐Sandoval (2001) · Novon A Journal for Botanical Nomenclature

Una especie nueva de Beaucarnea (Nolinaceae)

Luis Sandoval (1992) · Acta Botanica Mexicana

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