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Costus mollissimus Maas & H.Maas

Costaceae · Mexico Southwest, Mexico Southeast · listed by its genus as a tropical foliage plant

Cited as Kew's World Checklist cites it, Costus mollissimus Maas & H.Maas: GBIF's backbone key for this page carries the name with another author, Maas & H.Maas, 2023.

No habitat climate
Photographs not checked iNaturalist was skipped (not asked) when this page was built. Not asked, or not answered, is not "none": nothing here claims there is none. Why the site says it this way.
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About the genus · Costus

Costus is a genus of herbaceous perennial plants in the family Costaceae, described by Linnaeus in 1753. It is widespread through tropical and subtropical regions of Asia, Africa, and the Americas.

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

Cultivation

Grouped as a tropical foliage plant, listed under the genus Costus in the archetype table, and Kew describes it as “rhizomatous geophyte”, “wet tropical”.

Nothing derived: no habitat climate for this species.
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.

Group. Listed under the genus Costus in the archetype table, and Kew describes it as “rhizomatous geophyte”, “wet tropical”. A group is taken only where Kew's description of the species agrees with the table's listing. The table gives no figure and no prose; the cold floor is the habitat's alone.

Climate across the habitat

No habitat climate can be derived: 3 in-range records, none placed to within 10 km. 3 of the 3 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km, or to no stated accuracy and fewer than three decimals or by something other than a person's observation, and cannot place a climate cell, though they count for the map and its marker.

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeMexico Southwest, Mexico Southeast · 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 marker17.398, -93.031 · in the densest population, 3 records (100% of those in range)
Kew's description“rhizomatous geophyte” · “wet tropical” · quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Evidence usedThe map marker rests on all 3 georeferenced records inside the native range, all openly licensed and shown on the map. Under a dozen records behind the map. No climate across the range is derived for this species. 3 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 3 in-range records; it decides nothing. Records outside the native range, living specimens and records marked introduced are not used; which records count.

Photographs

Not checked. iNaturalist was skipped (not asked) when this page was built; GBIF's observation records with coordinates hold none. Not a statement that none exist.

Other Costus 40 in the reference

Costus acreanus Costaceae Costus afer Costus afer Spiral-ginger Photo: CC BY, Philippe HornusCostus allenii Costus allenii Costaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, David J. StangCostus amazonicus Costus amazonicus Costaceae Photo: CC BY, Dick Culbert from Gibsons, B.C., CanadaCostus arabicus Costus arabicus Costaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, Divya MudappaCostus atlanticus Costus atlanticus Costaceae Photo: CC BY, Diogo LuizCostus barbatus Costus barbatus Costaceae Photo: CC BY, Eduardo Chacón MadrigalCostus claviger Costus claviger Costaceae Photo: CC BY, thomas_oswaldCostus comosus Costus comosus Red tower ginger Photo: CC BY, Thomas MesaglioCostus curvibracteatus Costus curvibracteatus Costaceae Photo: CC BY, Ong Jyh SengCostus dirzoi Costus dirzoi Costaceae Photo: CC BY, Alexis López HernándezCostus dubius Costus dubius Costus Photo: CC BY, Kevin Faccenda all 41 ›

Names & registers

GBIFIPNIPOWO

The record

Family
Costaceae
Described by
Maas & H.Maas
Native to
Mexico Southwest, Mexico Southeast
Wild records
3 in range · 3 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 2026-10-21GBIF's key 12226873 is Costus mollissimus Maas & H.Maas, 2023; the page links Kew's Costus mollissimus Maas & H.Maas, and the name is cited as Kew cites it
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
Habitat climate climate nothing to reportasked 2026-10-213 in-range records, none placed to within 10 km
Wikidata wikidata nothing to reportasked 2026-10-21IPNI and POWO linked by Kew's number for Costus mollissimus Maas & H.Maas (no item's number)
Wikipedia wikipedia nothing to reportasked 2026-10-21
iNaturalist taxon inat.taxon not asked
iNaturalist photographs, wild inat.photos.wild not asked
iNaturalist photographs, cultivated inat.photos.cultivated not asked
GBIF media gbif.media nothing to reportasked 2026-10-21
Wikimedia Commons commons nothing to reportasked 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 2 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.

Cultifolio

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