Thomaz Ricardo Favreto Sinani, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF · observed growing wild

Bursera leptophloeos Mart.

Burseraceae

Climate known 24 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.

About the genus · Bursera

Bursera is a genus with about 100 described species of flowering shrubs and trees varying in size up to 25 m (82 ft) high. It is the type genus for Burseraceae. The trees are native to the Americas, from the southern United States south through to northern Argentina, in tropical and warm temperate forest habitats. More on Wikipedia ›

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

Family

Burseraceae

Described by

Mart.

Native to

Venezuela, Bolivia, Brazil West-Central +4

Wild records

597 in range· 480 open

At a glance

Warmest month

33°C

Oct, mean day; nights 21 °C (CHELSA)

Rain

609mm/yr

7 wet months · peak Mar 142 mm (CHELSA)

Light

28–44DLI

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 Bursera, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a sharp rainy season, January to May at the habitat (not shifted); the temperature curve is flat (3.5 °C of range), so no growing season is inferred. Habitat rain 609 mm a year, wettest March at 142 mm, driest August at 7 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 28 to 44 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 16.0 °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.

Also known as Bursera martiana Engl.; Bursera orinocensis Engl.; Commiphora leptophloeos (Mart.) J.B.Gillett; Icica leptophloeos Mart.; Icica leptophloeos Mart. ex Engl.

Cultivation

Grouped as a cactus or succulent by the genus Bursera, 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 sharp rainy season, January to May at the habitat (not shifted); the temperature curve is flat (3.5 °C of range), so no growing season is inferred.

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

The rain rule reads a sharp season: 70% of the year's rain (461 mm of 609 mm) falls in January to May. The temperature curve is flat, 3.5 °C between the warmest and coldest month, so the growing-season rule does not infer a growing season from it. Months are the habitat's, southern hemisphere, within 10° of the equator; with no thermal season there there is no season to reverse, so they are not shifted for a collection elsewhere.

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 609 mm a year, wettest March at 142 mm, driest August at 7 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

609 mm a year at the habitat, 461 mm of it January to May. Wettest month March at 142 mm, driest August at 7 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 505 mm to 1111 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, southern 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 44 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 28 to 44 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 24, the highest 90th-percentile month 45).

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 16.0 °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 16.0 °C, the absolute minimum 13.3 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 38.6 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 19.1 °C in August (across the envelope cells 16.1 °C to 22.1 °C), warmest day 32.5 °C in October (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 16.0 °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: 54 to 60% 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 433 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	31 / 28–33	31 / 28–33	31 / 28–32	30 / 27–31	29 / 27–31	28 / 25–31	28 / 25–31	29 / 26–32	31 / 28–34	33 / 29–35	33 / 28–35	32 / 28–34
Night °C	22 / 19–24	22 / 20–24	22 / 20–24	22 / 19–23	21 / 18–23	20 / 17–22	19 / 16–22	19 / 16–22	20 / 17–23	21 / 18–23	22 / 19–24	22 / 19–24
Rain mm	85 / 47–148	84 / 55–152	142 / 96–239	97 / 51–195	53 / 13–106	32 / 5–86	17 / 1–71	7 / 1–39	7 / 2–28	11 / 2–63	21 / 4–139	53 / 21–165
DLI	39 / 36–41	40 / 36–41	37 / 34–39	34 / 31–36	31 / 27–33	28 / 24–32	29 / 25–34	34 / 28–39	40 / 34–43	44 / 38–45	43 / 37–45	40 / 37–43
RH %	58 / 54–62	58 / 55–63	60 / 57–65	60 / 57–66	59 / 55–65	59 / 54–65	58 / 52–65	56 / 50–63	54 / 49–61	54 / 49–60	55 / 50–61	56 / 51–62

Each figure is the median across the 433 grid cells holding the 595 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 1995:2791 (-9.775, -40.425). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 13.3 °C, 1st-percentile night 16.0 °C, 99th-percentile day 38.6 °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 433 distinct grid cells holding the 595 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1995:2791 (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 -10.00_-40.625, lapse-corrected -146 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 449 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.

NativeVenezuela, Bolivia, Brazil West-Central, Brazil Northeast, Brazil Southeast, Brazil North, Paraguay

Kew's description“scrambling tree” · “seasonally dry tropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here

Map marker-8.452, -37.466 · in the densest population, 370 records (62% of those in range)

Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 597 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 480 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 81 km away. 2 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 inside the densest 2° block of the 597 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Photographs: Thomaz Ricardo Favreto Sinani, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF (8).

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

Six flavonoids from Bursera leptophloeos

Mirian P. Souza, Maria Iracema L. Machado, Raimundo Braz‐Filho (1989) · Phytochemistry

Estudo de plantas bioativas

Josiane de Souza Luna (2006) · Americanae (AECID Library)

A New Furanosesquiterpene fromBursera LeptophloeosMarth

Eveline S. Barreira, Francisco José Queiroz Monte, Raimundo Braz‐Filho (1996) · Natural product letters

Alguns aspectos fisionômicos da vegetação do Brasil

Henrique P. Veloso, Harold Edgard Strang (1970) · Memórias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz

Occurrence Download

GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility

Occurrence Download

GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility

Bursera leptophloeos Mart.