Cojoba arborea, Sendero Cascada, Palenque, Chis., MX

Cojoba arborea (L.) Britton & Rose

Itil, royal mahogany, wild tamarind

Climate known 48 photographs

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

Cojoba arborea, the wild tamarind, royal mahogany, everfresh tree, or lorito, is a leguminous tree of the family Fabaceae found in the Caribbean, Mexico, and Central America, southward to Ecuador in South America at elevations to 1,300 m (4,300 ft). The tree is not common in naturalized forests, but it can be found in open sites and transition zones.

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

About the genus · Cojoba

Cojoba is a genus of flowering plants in the family Fabaceae. It includes 15 species, which range through the tropical Americas from northern Mexico through Central America and the Caribbean to Bolivia and northern Brazil.

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

Family

Fabaceae

Described by

(L.) Britton & Rose

Native to

Mexico Central, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Gulf +18

Wild records

1255 in range· 989 open

At a glance

Warmest month

28°C

May, mean day; nights 21 °C (CHELSA)

Rain

1916mm/yr

12 wet months · peak Sep 307 mm (CHELSA)

Light

26–40DLI

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 summer growing season, May to October in the northern hemisphere (May to October at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 1916 mm a year, wettest September at 307 mm, driest March at 54 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 26 to 40 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 14.3 °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 Acacia arborea (L.) Willd.; Cojoba matudai (Lundell) L.Rico; Mimosa arborea L.; Pithecellobium arboreum (L.) Urb.; Pithecolobium arboreum (L.) Urb. and 8 more.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: a summer growing season, May to October in the northern hemisphere (May to October at the habitat, northern).

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

The rain rule reads a summer growing season: 70% of the year's rain (1445 mm of 1916 mm) falls in May to October, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 24.5 °C against a yearly mean of 23.4 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: November to April.

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 1916 mm a year, wettest September at 307 mm, driest March at 54 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1916 mm a year at the habitat, 1445 mm of it May to October. Wettest month September at 307 mm, driest March at 54 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1227 mm to 3313 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: 26 to 40 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 26 to 40 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 21, 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 14.3 °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 14.3 °C, the absolute minimum 8.9 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 33.8 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 17.5 °C in January (across the envelope cells 10.3 °C to 22.0 °C), warmest day 28.4 °C in May (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 14.3 °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: 62 to 68% 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 841 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	25 / 20–28	26 / 21–29	27 / 23–30	28 / 24–32	28 / 23–32	28 / 22–31	27 / 22–31	28 / 22–31	28 / 22–30	27 / 21–29	26 / 20–28	25 / 20–28
Night °C	18 / 10–22	18 / 11–22	19 / 12–22	20 / 13–23	21 / 14–24	21 / 15–24	21 / 14–24	21 / 14–24	21 / 14–24	21 / 14–23	19 / 12–23	18 / 11–22
Rain mm	69 / 13–203	58 / 12–177	54 / 13–159	72 / 29–188	143 / 70–341	273 / 95–437	251 / 84–445	258 / 83–476	307 / 114–538	213 / 114–435	130 / 36–279	88 / 15–228
DLI	27 / 22–35	31 / 26–38	37 / 31–42	40 / 29–43	39 / 26–42	35 / 25–41	35 / 25–42	35 / 28–40	32 / 28–36	30 / 26–34	27 / 24–34	26 / 21–33
RH %	65 / 58–70	64 / 57–69	62 / 56–67	62 / 57–67	65 / 59–69	67 / 63–71	67 / 61–72	67 / 62–72	68 / 63–72	68 / 63–72	66 / 60–71	66 / 59–70

Each figure is the median across the 841 grid cells holding the 1232 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 1467:1819 (16.625, -89.025). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 8.9 °C, 1st-percentile night 14.3 °C, 99th-percentile day 33.8 °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 841 distinct grid cells holding the 1232 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1467:1819 (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 16.50_-88.750, lapse-corrected +384 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 607 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 Northeast, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southwest, Mexico Southeast, Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru

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

Map marker19.436, -96.899 · in the densest population, 714 records (57% of those in range)

Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1255 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 989 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 2 km away. 63 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 23 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 1255 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Photographs: (c) Diana Fuentes, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA); (c) Anthony Mora Aguilar, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Jose Gutierrez Higa, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Dan Schofield, some rights reserved (CC BY) (5).

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

Performance of 15 tropical tree species recruited or transplanted on restoration settings

Alejandra Guzmán Luna, Cristina Martínez‐Garza (2016) · Botanical Sciences

Interactions in tropical reforestation – how plant defence and polycultures can reduce growth‐limiting herbivory

Tara Joy Massad (2012) · Applied Vegetation Science

Effectiveness of native arbuscular mycorrhiza on the growth of four tree forest species from the Santa Marta Mountain, Veracruz (Mexico)

Yolanda Retama-Ortiz, Carlos H. Ávila-Bello, Alejandro Alarcón, Ronald Ferrera‐Cerrato (2017) · Forest Systems

Relato de experiência sobre o potencial bioherbicida da Cojoba arborea na germinação e vigor de Cassia fistula

Maria Clara Fernandes, Marta Betânia Ferreira CARVALHO, Guilherme Oliveira SANTOLIN, Kelrely Gambeti FARIAS (2022) · Revista ELO – Diálogos em Extensão

Branch die‐back of Cojoba arborea caused by Lasiodiplodia brasiliensis

Luis Mata, Júliana Garlet, L. Eburneo, Vinícius Augusto Morais (2025) · New Disease Reports

Produção de mudas de Cojoba arborea (L.) Britton & Rose em diferentes substratos e níveis de sombreamento

Cleverson Agueiro de Carvalho, Ronier Felipe da Silva Oliveira, Ítalo Felipe Nogueira Ribeiro, Reginaldo Almeida Andrade (2021)

Produção de mudas de Cojoba arborea (L.) Britton & Rose em diferentes substratos e níveis de sombreamento

Cleverson Agueiro de Carvalho, Ronier Felipe da Silva Oliveira, Ítalo Felipe Nogueira Ribeiro, Reginaldo Almeida Andrade (2021) · Scientia Naturalis

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