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Brahea edulis; photograph (c) Jose Luis Leon de la Luz, some rights reserved (CC BY) CC BY(c) Jose Luis Leon de la Luz, some rights reserved (CC BY) · observed growing wild · 2000-06-07

Brahea edulis H.Wendl. ex S.Watson

Guadalupe Palm; Guadeloupe palm; Rock palm; Sweet brahea palm

Arecaceae · Mexican Pacific Is.

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Brahea edulis, photograph (c) Jose Luis Leon de la Luz, some rights reserved (CC BY)Brahea edulis, photograph (c) Thibaud Aronson, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA)Brahea edulis, photograph (c) william_hoyer, some rights reserved (CC BY)Brahea edulis, photograph (c) Ignacio March Mifsut, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA)Brahea edulis, photograph Steve L. Martin, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia CommonsBrahea edulis, photograph This illustration was made by Citron, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons 14 photographs ›
Habitat figures
Coldest month, mean nightly low
13.7°C
Feb at the habitat, not a floor; extremes not used (sea cell) CHELSA
Warmest month, mean daily high
20°C
Aug and Sep at the habitat CHELSA
Rain a year (median across the range)
106mm
No month of 25 mm or more in the median year CHELSA
Open-sky light
21–47DLI
Lowest to highest month (DLI) CHELSA
The year in your months, northern hemisphere
  1. Jan
  2. Feb
  3. Mar
  4. Apr
  5. May
  6. Jun
  7. Jul
  8. Aug
  9. Sep
  10. Oct
  11. Nov
  12. Dec
107 mm of rain in the median year, under the rule's 120 mm, so no rainy season is read; the cooler six months are December to May. rain and temperature rules, CHELSA
Northern hemisphere unless you set your site. The chart is in the habitat's months.

Summary

Brahea edulis, the Guadalupe palm or palma de Guadalupe, is a palm endemic to Guadalupe Island, Mexico, although a few stands have been planted elsewhere. It is a fan palm which grows 4.50 to 13 metres (15 to 43 ft) tall. It grows on the island between 400 and 1,000 metres (1,300 and 3,300 ft) above mean sea level (ASL), with this altitudinal zonation producing one of the few fog oases present in North America.

Quoted from Wikipedia, "Brahea edulis", CC BY-SA 4.0.

About the genus · Brahea

Brahea is a genus of palms in the family Arecaceae. They are commonly referred to as hesper palms and are endemic to Mexico and Central America. All Hesper Palms have large, fan-shaped leaves. More on Wikipedia ›

Quoted from Wikipedia, "Brahea", CC BY-SA 4.0.

Cultivation

Seasons

Rain at the habitat is 107 mm in the median year (across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). Under 120 mm the rain rule reads no rainy season, and the growing-season rule infers nothing from it. The temperature rule reads the cooler six months as December to May. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: June to November.

Rain

107 mm in the median year at the habitat. Wettest month February at 22 mm, driest months (2 at 2 mm); 4 months under 5 mm. Across the grid cells of the range the year's total runs 97 mm to 119 mm, the 10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year. The median of the cells' own yearly totals, 106 mm, is the year's rain at the top of the page; the 107 mm here is the median year's, the twelve monthly medians added, which the rain rule reads. Habitat calendar, northern hemisphere; median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA.

Light

Open sky over the habitat: 21 to 47 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 19, the highest 90th-percentile month 50).

Warmth and air
Temperature

Monthly means: the coldest month's mean nightly low 13.7 °C in February (across the grid cells of the range 12.3 °C to 14.2 °C), the warmest month's mean daily high 19.9 °C in August and September (median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). Cold floor: none read. The nearest figure is 13.7 °C, the coldest month's mean nightly low, February, in the median year (CHELSA); a month's mean of its nightly lows is warmer than the nights a floor is read from. The daily extremes were read at a weather cell that is mostly sea and are not used.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 60 to 64% across the year (monthly means, median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

How this section is made

Each card states this species' habitat figures with their sources, and what two fixed rules read from them; nothing here says what the plant does, wants or tolerates. The rules · the terms.

Seasons. Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the grid cells of the range: 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 moves 4 °C or more and the habitat lies 10° or more from the equator. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

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

Light. 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.

Temperature. CHELSA monthly means, median year across the grid cells of the range. No cold floor is read without a daily extremes series; the coldest month's mean nightly low named in its sentence is not one. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity. CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the grid cells of the range.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat months, northern hemisphere

Habitat climate of Brahea edulis through the yearWarmest months August and September, mean daily high 20 °C; coldest month February, mean nightly low 13.7 °C; 107 mm of rain in the median year (the twelve monthly medians added). Medians across the range, from CHELSA. Habitat months, northern hemisphere.10°15°20°25°°C · day and nightcold quarter0102030mm rainDLI 21–47RH 60–64%JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain medians and 10th–90th percentile across 11 habitat cells, CHELSA cold quarter: the three months around the coldest month's mean nightly low DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C15 / 14–1615 / 14–1515 / 14–1516 / 15–1617 / 16–1818 / 17–2019 / 19–2120 / 19–2120 / 20–2019 / 19–1917 / 17–1816 / 15–16
Night °C14 / 13–1514 / 12–1414 / 13–1414 / 14–1516 / 15–1717 / 16–1918 / 18–2019 / 18–2019 / 19–1918 / 17–1816 / 15–1715 / 13–15
Rain mm15 / 13–1622 / 20–2411 / 9–126 / 5–73 / 3–43 / 2–3225 / 5–611 / 10–1210 / 9–1217 / 15–19
DLI24 / 21–2529 / 26–3036 / 34–3743 / 42–4445 / 44–4847 / 46–5046 / 45–4943 / 43–4639 / 38–4031 / 29–3225 / 22–2721 / 19–23
RH %60 / 51–6661 / 52–6562 / 52–6562 / 50–6562 / 49–6662 / 45–6764 / 46–7064 / 46–7064 / 50–6963 / 51–6861 / 50–6560 / 51–64

The daily extremes were read at a NASA POWER cell that is 12% land: neither it nor the next candidates whose coldest month's mean nightly low is within 2 °C of the median across cells sit in a POWER cell that is mostly land, and the rule reads a cold floor only from a cell that is mostly land, so none is read for this species. Nor is the coldest month's mean nightly low taken as one: it is a mean of a month's lows, not its coldest night. What that cell gave over 44 years: absolute minimum 9.5 °C, 1st-percentile night 10.8 °C, 99th-percentile day 22.1 °C.

How this section is made
Each figure is the median across the 11 grid cells holding the 29 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. A dash is a month one or more of those cells has no figure for in the grid (a variable CHELSA does not carry there), so no median is taken rather than one over fewer cells. Extremes and elevation were read at a typical spot in the range, cell 1221:1234 (28.925, -118.275). Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Across the range: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 11 distinct grid cells holding 29 of the 29 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1221:1234 (its coldest month's mean nightly low nearest the median across cells, though its NASA POWER cell is only 12% land and none of the 10 next candidates within 2 °C of the median was mostly land); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 29.00_-118.125, lapse-corrected +286 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 313 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 the cells of the in-range records placed well enough to read one, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeMexican Pacific Is. · regions are the level-3 units of the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions, as Kew's World Checklist records ranges, some under historical names such as Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia (how).
Map marker29.047, -118.288 · in the densest population, 38 records (100% of those in range)
Kew's description“tree” · “desert or dry shrubland” · quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Evidence usedThe map marker rests on all 38 georeferenced records inside the native range; the climate across the range on the 29 of them placed to within 10 km; the map shows only the 16 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 5 km away. 11 records outside the WCVP native range not used. 9 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km, or with no stated accuracy (admitted only as a person's observation to three decimals), and stay on the map but off the climate.
How this section is made
The map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population of the 38 in-range records; it decides nothing. Records outside the native range, living specimens and records marked introduced are not used; which records count.

Photographs

Brahea edulis, photograph 1did not loadBrahea edulis, photograph 2did not loadBrahea edulis, photograph 3did not loadBrahea edulis, photograph 4did not loadBrahea edulis, photograph 5did not loadBrahea edulis, photograph 6did not load

Photographs: (c) Jose Luis Leon de la Luz, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Thibaud Aronson, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA); (c) william_hoyer, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Ignacio March Mifsut, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA); Steve L. Martin, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons; This illustration was made by Citron, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Similar habitat climate The 6 nearest by mean daily high, mean nightly low and rain, month by month. How.

Sphaeralcea sulphurea Sphaeralcea sulphurea Guadalupe Island Globemallow Photo: Public domain, Stickpen Hesperocyparis guadalupensis Cupressaceae Nesothamnus incanus Nesothamnus incanus Asteraceae Photo: CC BY-SA, David J. StangMalva occidentalis Malva occidentalis Malvaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, Krzysztof Ziarnek, Kenraiz Cistanthe guadalupensis Montiaceae Dudleya guadalupensis Dudleya guadalupensis Guadalupe Dudleya Photo: CC0, Toyonbro

Other Brahea 8 in the reference

Brahea aculeata Brahea aculeata Sinaloa hesper palm Photo: CC BY, Enrique Martínez NúñezBrahea armata Brahea armata Mexican blue palm Photo: CC0, author not statedBrahea brandegeei Brahea brandegeei San Jose hesper palm Photo: CC BY, Abraham Sánchez RomeroBrahea calcarea Brahea calcarea Rock palm Photo: CC BY-SA, Matteo CassellaBrahea decumbens Brahea decumbens Arecaceae Photo: CC BY, quirinoBrahea dulcis Brahea dulcis Apak palm Photo: CC BY, José Javier Barrios Flores Brahea moorei Arecaceae Brahea pimo Brahea pimo Arecaceae Photo: CC BY, José Javier Barrios Flores

Names & registers

Also known as Erythea edulis. (GBIF Backbone)

GBIFPOWOIPNIWFOWikidataWikipediaiNaturalist

The record

Family
Arecaceae
Described by
H.Wendl. ex S.Watson
Native to
Mexican Pacific Is.
Wild records
38 in range · 16 open

Every figure here is derived from public data by a stated rule and names its source; nothing about this species is written for its page by a person or by AI, apart from the marked, credited quotations. How →

Where this page came from built 2026-10-21
GBIF species record gbif.species answeredasked 2026-10-21
GBIF synonyms gbif.synonyms answeredasked 2026-10-21
GBIF common names gbif.vernacular answeredasked 2026-10-21names fetched 2026-10-21
WCVP native range wcvp.distribution answeredas of 2026-06-04
GBIF occurrence records gbif.occurrences answeredas of 2026-10-21GBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.hbdw64, of 2026-10-21; 4 records within 1 km of a botanic garden, herbarium or zoo left out (4 at a botanic garden or arboretum; Wikidata's list)
Habitat climate climate answeredasked 2026-10-21
Daily extremes (NASA POWER) climate.extremes answeredasked 2026-10-21NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 29.00_-118.125, lapse-corrected +286 m at 6.5 °C/km; read, and set aside: NASA POWER's cell is mostly sea (12% land), so no cold floor is shown
Wikidata wikidata answeredasked 2026-10-21
Wikipedia wikipedia answeredasked 2026-10-21
iNaturalist photographs, wild inat.photos.wild answeredasked 2026-10-22from iNaturalist's open data of 2026-09-27: research-grade observations with an open-licence photograph, the 24 whose photographs iNaturalist received last (the open data holds no votes); filled 2026-10-22
iNaturalist photographs, cultivated inat.photos.cultivated not asked
GBIF media gbif.media answeredasked 2026-10-21none of the photographs on this page is credited to GBIF: those shown are other sources', and GBIF's were the same photographs or were set aside by the photograph rules
Wikimedia Commons commons answeredasked 2026-10-21
OpenAlex papers openalex not askednot yet asked for this reference; a later fill takes the papers from OpenAlex's snapshot

Every source is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, refused, failed, not been asked, or answered twice where one answer is taken (“not taken: two items answered”), and, for a source asked when this page was built, when: the figures are as the source held them that day; a source read from a file (Kew's World Checklist, a GBIF download) says "as of" the file's day instead; a row carried from an earlier build of the page names that build instead. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 19 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.

Cultifolio

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