Species
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Ceroxylon quindiuense (H.Karst.) H.Wendl.

Quindio Wax Palm, Wax palm

Climate known 52 photographs Tropical foliage plant
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

Ceroxylon quindiuense, often called Quindío wax palm, is a palm native to the humid montane forests of the Andes in Colombia and Peru.

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

About the genus · Ceroxylon

Ceroxylon is a genus of flowering plants in the family Arecaceae, native to the Andes in Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia, known as Andean wax palms.

Text from Wikipedia, “Ceroxylon”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Arecaceae
Described by
(H.Karst.) H.Wendl.
Native to
Colombia, Peru
Wild records
211 in range· 67 open

At a glance

Warmest month
18°C
Feb, mean day; nights 10 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
2646mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Oct 307 mm (CHELSA)
Light
27–33DLI
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 tropical foliage plant by Arecaceae, which is usually but not always one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (March to June and September to December at the habitat (not shifted)). Habitat rain 2646 mm a year, wettest October at 307 mm, driest January at 128 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 27 to 33 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 12 °C (archetype minimum for a tropical foliage plant, above the 4.9 °C habitat night).
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 Ceroxylon floccosum Burret; Klopstockia quindiuensis H.Karst.

Cultivation

Grouped as a tropical foliage plant by Arecaceae, which is usually but not always one kind of plant (archetype table). The table supplies one figure for this group, a conventional minimum for the cold floor, and no prose.

Its year Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (March to June and September to December at the habitat (not shifted)).

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

The rain rule reads no season: 70% of the year's rain (2029 mm of 2646 mm) takes 8 months, March to June and September to December. Mean temperature moves 0.7 °C between the warmest and coldest month. 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 2646 mm a year, wettest October at 307 mm, driest January at 128 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

2646 mm a year at the habitat, 2029 mm of it March to June and September to December. Wettest month October at 307 mm, driest January at 128 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 999 mm to 3931 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: 27 to 33 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 27 to 33 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 22, the highest 90th-percentile month 38).

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 12 °C (archetype minimum for a tropical foliage plant, above the 4.9 °C habitat night).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is 4.9 °C, the absolute minimum 2.6 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 19.0 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 9.2 °C in August (across the envelope cells 7.2 °C to 12.2 °C), warmest day 17.9 °C in February (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 12 °C. The habitat figure, the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER), is 4.9 °C; the archetype table's conventional minimum for a tropical foliage plant (grouped by Arecaceae, which is usually but not always one kind of plant) is 12 °C, which is higher, and the floor rule takes the higher.

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, and the archetype table's group minimum where that is higher. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 67 to 71% 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 17 °C in Jun to 18 °C in Feb; mean night from 9 °C in Aug to 11 °C in Apr. The cold quarter, Jul to Sep, is the three months around the coldest night. 2646 mm of rain a year, most in Oct. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 42 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was 2.6 °C and the 99th-percentile day 19.0 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.10°15°20°25°19.0° 99th-percentile day (undated)2.6° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400500mm rainDLI 27–33RH 67–71 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 42 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 °C18 / 15–2018 / 16–2118 / 16–2118 / 15–2017 / 15–2017 / 15–2017 / 15–2018 / 16–2118 / 16–2018 / 15–2017 / 15–2017 / 15–20
Night °C10 / 7–1210 / 8–1210 / 8–1311 / 9–1310 / 8–1310 / 8–139 / 7–129 / 7–129 / 7–1210 / 8–1310 / 8–1310 / 7–13
Rain mm128 / 47–220155 / 62–252220 / 89–296303 / 122–392296 / 112–420196 / 65–379168 / 58–356166 / 55–289215 / 66–345307 / 121–406295 / 126–394197 / 65–264
DLI31 / 27–3432 / 28–3432 / 28–3529 / 24–3327 / 23–3227 / 23–3229 / 25–3533 / 27–3732 / 26–3830 / 24–3528 / 22–3229 / 24–32
RH %69 / 60–7369 / 60–7270 / 61–7271 / 63–7470 / 63–7469 / 61–7267 / 59–7267 / 58–7268 / 58–7270 / 60–7371 / 63–7470 / 61–74

Each figure is the median across the 42 grid cells holding the 99 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 1705:2119 (4.725, -74.025). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 2.6 °C, 1st-percentile night 4.9 °C, 99th-percentile day 19.0 °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 42 distinct grid cells holding the 99 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1705:2119 (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 4.50_-73.750, lapse-corrected +606 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 2706 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.
NativeColombia, Peru
Kew's description“tree” · “wet tropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker4.655, -75.457 · in the densest population, 165 records (78% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 211 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 67 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 13 km away. 1 record outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 112 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 211 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Ceroxylon quindiuenseCeroxylon quindiuenseCeroxylon quindiuenseCeroxylon quindiuenseCeroxylon quindiuenseCeroxylon quindiuenseCeroxylon quindiuenseCeroxylon quindiuense

Photographs: (c) Steven Bodzin, some rights reserved (CC BY); no rights reserved · CC0 (2); (c) Nicolás Baresch Uribe, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) Skjold Søndergaard, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) portioid, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) ajott, some rights reserved (CC BY).

Photographs: iNaturalist and Wikimedia Commons 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 Ceroxylon quindiuense, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Sap beetles of the tribe Mystropini (Coleoptera: Nitidulidae) associated with South American palm inflorescences
Alexander G. Kirejtshuk, Guy Couturier (2010) · Annales de la Société entomologique de France (N S )
Juvenile Resilience and Adult Longevity Explain Residual Populations of the Andean Wax Palm Ceroxylon quindiuense after Deforestation
María José Sanín, Fabien Anthelme, Jean‐Christophe Pintaud, Gloria Galeano (2013) · PLoS ONE
Scenario-modelling for the sustainable management of non-timber forest products in tropical ecosystems
Loyapin Bondé, Julia Camara Assis, Sandra Benavides‐Gordillo, Eréndira Canales-Gómez (2020) · Biota Neotropica
Phenology of the endangered palm Ceroxylon quindiuense (Arecaceae) along an altitudinal gradient in Colombia
Blanca Martínez, René López Camacho, Luis Santiago Castillo, Rodrigo Bernal (2021) · Revista de Biología Tropical
New eriophyoid mites (Prostigmata: Eriophyoidea) associated with palm trees (Arecaceae) from South America
Aleuny C. Reis, Manoel G. C. Gondim, Francisco Ferragut, Denise Návia (2014) · International Journal of Acarology
Diversity and population genetic structure of the wax palm Ceroxylon quindiuense in the Colombian Coffee Region
Natalia González-Rivillas, Adriana Bohórquez, Janeth Patricia Gutierrez, Victor Hugo García‐Merchán (2018) · bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory)

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.

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 not askedcarried 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 35 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.