Species
+

Cassia grandis L.f.

Jakú, Korriu, Pink Shower, Pink Shower Tree

Climate known 98 photographs
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

Cassia grandis, one of several species called pink shower tree, and known as carao in Spanish, is a flowering plant in the family Fabaceae, native to the neotropics, that grows up to 30 m (98 ft). The species is distributed from southern Mexico, to Venezuela and Ecuador. It grows in forests and open fields at lower elevations, and is known to be planted as an ornamental. In at least Costa Rica, its pods are stewed into a molasses-like syrup, taken as a sweetener and for its nutritional and medicinal effects, called Jarabe de Carao.

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

Family
Fabaceae
Described by
L.f.
Native to
Mexico Central, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Southwest +27
Wild records
1183 in range· 671 open

At a glance

Warmest month
30°C
Mar, mean day; nights 22 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
1754mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Sep 228 mm (CHELSA)
Light
30–36DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Rain rule: a sharp rainy season, May to October at the habitat (not shifted); the temperature curve is flat (1.1 °C of range), so no growing season is inferred. Habitat rain 1754 mm a year, wettest September at 228 mm, driest January at 56 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 30 to 36 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 14.4 °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 Bactyrilobium grande (L.f.) Hornem.; Bactyrilobium molle (Vahl) Schrad.; Cassia brasiliana Lam.; Cassia brasiliana var. tomentosa Miq.; Cassia brasiliensis Buc'hoz and 6 more.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: a sharp rainy season, May to October at the habitat (not shifted); the temperature curve is flat (1.1 °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 (1230 mm of 1754 mm) falls in May to October. The temperature curve is flat, 1.1 °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, northern 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 1754 mm a year, wettest September at 228 mm, driest January at 56 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1754 mm a year at the habitat, 1230 mm of it May to October. Wettest month September at 228 mm, driest January at 56 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1157 mm to 3202 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: 30 to 36 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 30 to 36 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 43).

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 14.4 °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 14.4 °C, the absolute minimum 10.6 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 42.4 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 21.8 °C in January (across the envelope cells 17.7 °C to 24.0 °C), warmest day 29.9 °C in March (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 14.4 °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: 61 to 67% 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 28 °C in Nov to 30 °C in Mar; mean night from 22 °C in Jan to 23 °C in Apr. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 1754 mm of rain a year, most in Sep. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 782 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was 10.6 °C and the 99th-percentile day 42.4 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.10°20°30°40°50°42.4° 99th-percentile day (undated)10.6° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400500mm rainDLI 30–36RH 61–67 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 782 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 °C29 / 25–3229 / 26–3330 / 27–3330 / 26–3329 / 25–3328 / 25–3128 / 24–3129 / 25–3229 / 25–3128 / 26–3028 / 26–3128 / 25–31
Night °C22 / 18–2422 / 18–2422 / 18–2423 / 18–2523 / 18–2522 / 16–2522 / 16–2522 / 16–2522 / 17–2422 / 18–2422 / 18–2422 / 18–24
Rain mm56 / 10–25564 / 8–19072 / 10–203102 / 29–316187 / 61–430219 / 38–428182 / 28–411193 / 30–384228 / 55–406221 / 81–383148 / 45–27082 / 23–233
DLI34 / 25–3736 / 30–3936 / 32–4234 / 29–4331 / 25–4030 / 23–3731 / 24–3933 / 27–3833 / 29–3731 / 27–3830 / 25–3831 / 24–37
RH %63 / 53–6862 / 53–6761 / 54–6763 / 57–6865 / 59–7066 / 60–7165 / 57–7065 / 57–7067 / 58–7166 / 60–7165 / 60–7164 / 58–69

Each figure is the median across the 782 grid cells holding the 1154 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 1436:1758 (18.175, -92.075). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 10.6 °C, 1st-percentile night 14.4 °C, 99th-percentile day 42.4 °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 782 distinct grid cells holding the 1154 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1436:1758 (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_-91.875, lapse-corrected -21 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 2 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 Gulf, Mexico Southwest, Mexico Southeast, Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Southwest Caribbean, French Guiana, Guyana, Surinam, Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil West-Central, Brazil Northeast, Brazil Southeast, Brazil North, Brazil South· introduced: Gambia, The, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, Zaïre, Tanzania, Uganda, Bangladesh, East Himalaya, India, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Jawa, New Guinea, Queensland, Caroline Is., Trinidad-Tobago, Galápagos
Kew's description“tree” · “wet tropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker8.342, -75.534 · in the densest population, 487 records (41% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1183 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 671 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 1391 km away. 87 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 29 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 4° block of the 1183 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Cassia grandisCassia grandisCassia grandisCassia grandisCassia grandisCassia grandisCassia grandisCassia grandis

Photographs: (c) K. Musálem, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) (3); (c) Gustavo Sandres, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) (2); no rights reserved · CC0 (3).

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

Characterization and rheological study of the galactomannan extracted from seeds of Cassia grandis
Priscilla Barbosa Sales de Albuquerque, Wilson Barros, Gustavo Ramalho Cardoso dos Santos, Maria Tereza dos Santos Correia (2014) · Carbohydrate Polymers
Removal of lead from aqueous solutions using Cassia grandis seed gum-graft-poly(methylmethacrylate)
Vandana Singh, Stuti Tiwari, Ajit Sharma, Rashmi Sanghi (2007) · Journal of Colloid and Interface Science
Cassia grandis Linn. f. seed galactomannan: structural and crystallographical studies
Harsha Joshi, V. P. Kapoor (2003) · Carbohydrate Research
Development of an Innovative Pressurized Liquid Extraction Procedure by Response Surface Methodology to Recover Bioactive Compounds from Carao Tree Seeds
Jhunior Marcía, Lucía López-Salas, Isabel Borrás‐Linares, Miguel Navarro‐Alarcón (2021) · Foods
Healing activity evaluation of the galactomannan film obtained from Cassia grandis seeds with immobilized Cratylia mollis seed lectin
Priscilla Barbosa Sales de Albuquerque, Paulo Rodinei Soares Lopes, Adelmo Cavalcanti Aragão-Neto, Giwellington Silva Albuquerque (2017) · International Journal of Biological Macromolecules
Plantas medicinais usadas para tratamentos dermatológicos, em comunidades da Bacia do Alto Paraguai, Mato Grosso
Márcia dos Santos Macêdo, Ana Rosa Ferreira (2004) · Revista Brasileira de Farmacognosia
Immobilization of bioactive compounds in Cassia grandis galactomannan-based films: Influence on physicochemical properties
Priscilla Barbosa Sales de Albuquerque, Miguel A. Cerqueira, António A. Vicente, J. A. Teixeira (2017) · International Journal of Biological Macromolecules
Assessment of the antidiabetic potential of Cassia grandis using an in vivo model
Sandesh Lodha, Shrikant V. Joshi, Bhavin Vyas, MohiniC Upadhye (2010) · Journal of Advanced Pharmaceutical Technology amp Research

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 Cassia 4 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 answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
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 193 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.