Species
+

Crescentia cujete L.

Calabash, Calabash (Virgin Isl.), Calabash Tree, Calabash tree (Jamaica)

Climate known 68 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

Crescentia cujete, commonly known as the calabash tree, is a species of flowering plant. It is a medium-sized tree in the trumpet vine family Bignoniaceae native to the Americas, and which is grown in Africa, Southeast Asia, Central America, South America, the West Indies and extreme southern Florida. It is the national tree of St. Lucia. It is a dicotyledonous plant with simple leaves, which are alternate or in fascicles (clusters) on short shoots. More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Crescentia cujete”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Crescentia

Crescentia is a genus of six species of flowering plants in the family Bignoniaceae, native to Mexico, the Caribbean, Central America, and northern South America. The species are moderate-size trees growing to 10 m (35 ft) tall, and producing large spherical fruits, with a thin, hard shell and soft pulp, up to 25 cm (10 in) in diameter.

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

Family
Bignoniaceae
Described by
L.
Native to
Mexico Northeast, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southwest +23
Wild records
1356 in range· 647 open

At a glance

Warmest month
30°C
Mar, mean day; nights 23 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
1526mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Oct 211 mm (CHELSA)
Light
29–38DLI
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 (1.5 °C of range), so no growing season is inferred. Habitat rain 1526 mm a year, wettest October at 211 mm, driest February at 31 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 29 to 38 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 21.3 °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 Crescentia acuminata Kunth; Crescentia angustifolia Willd.; Crescentia angustifolia Willd. ex Seem.; Crescentia arborea Raf.; Crescentia cujete var. puberula Bureau & K.Schum. 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 (1.5 °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 (1101 mm of 1526 mm) falls in May to October. The temperature curve is flat, 1.5 °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, 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 1526 mm a year, wettest October at 211 mm, driest February at 31 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1526 mm a year at the habitat, 1101 mm of it May to October. Wettest month October at 211 mm, driest February at 31 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1046 mm to 2992 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: 29 to 38 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 29 to 38 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 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 21.3 °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 21.3 °C, the absolute minimum 19.4 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 36.5 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 22.6 °C in January (across the envelope cells 17.8 °C to 24.4 °C), warmest day 30.3 °C in March (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 21.3 °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: 60 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 Dec to 30 °C in Mar; mean night from 23 °C in Jan to 24 °C in Jun. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 1526 mm of rain a year, most in Oct. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 766 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was 19.4 °C and the 99th-percentile day 36.5 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.15°20°25°30°35°40°36.5° 99th-percentile day (undated)19.4° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400mm rainDLI 29–38RH 60–67 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 766 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 °C28 / 25–3329 / 25–3430 / 26–3430 / 26–3330 / 27–3229 / 27–3229 / 27–3329 / 27–3229 / 27–3129 / 26–3028 / 26–3028 / 25–31
Night °C23 / 18–2423 / 18–2523 / 19–2524 / 20–2524 / 21–2624 / 21–2624 / 20–2624 / 21–2624 / 21–2623 / 20–2523 / 19–2523 / 18–25
Rain mm34 / 7–13231 / 8–10945 / 12–124103 / 30–203172 / 85–323169 / 98–352158 / 83–354185 / 109–356206 / 139–387211 / 135–377145 / 65–29267 / 32–183
DLI33 / 26–3636 / 30–3938 / 35–4238 / 32–4333 / 29–4234 / 27–4235 / 28–4234 / 29–4132 / 30–3830 / 27–3529 / 25–3230 / 24–33
RH %62 / 56–6760 / 55–6661 / 56–6563 / 57–6866 / 60–7066 / 62–7165 / 61–7166 / 61–7167 / 63–7167 / 63–7267 / 61–7164 / 60–69

Each figure is the median across the 766 grid cells holding the 1344 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 1634:2075 (8.275, -76.225). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 19.4 °C, 1st-percentile night 21.3 °C, 99th-percentile day 36.5 °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 766 distinct grid cells holding the 1344 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1634:2075 (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 8.50_-76.250, lapse-corrected +44 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 127 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 Northeast, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southwest, Mexico Southeast, Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Aruba, Bahamas, Cayman Is., Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Leeward Is. AB Ant, Netherlands Antilles, Puerto Rico, Southwest Caribbean, Venezuelan Antilles, Windward Is., Venezuela, Colombia· introduced: Benin, Gambia, The, Chad, Comoros, Bangladesh, Caroline Is., Trinidad-Tobago, Ecuador, Galápagos, Peru, Brazil Southeast
Kew's description“tree” · “wet tropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker9.888, -74.437 · in the densest population, 688 records (51% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1356 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 647 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 77 km away. 244 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 12 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 1356 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Crescentia cujeteCrescentia cujeteCrescentia cujeteCrescentia cujeteCrescentia cujeteCrescentia cujeteCrescentia cujeteCrescentia cujete

Photographs: no rights reserved · CC0 (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 Crescentia cujete, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Ethnomedicines used in Trinidad and Tobago for urinary problems and diabetes mellitus
Cheryl Lans (2006) · Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine
History and Distribution of the Cultivated Cucurbits in the Americas
Hugh C. Cutler, Thomas W. Whitaker (1961) · American Antiquity
Antioxidant activities of ethanol extracts and fractions of Crescentia cujete leaves and stem bark and the involvement of phenolic compounds
Nandita Das, Md. Ekramul Islam, Nusrat Jahan, Mohammad Saiful Islam (2014) · BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine
Evaluation of in vitro anti-inflammatory and antibacterial potential of Crescentia cujete leaves and stem bark
Mst. Shahnaj Parvin, Nandita Das, Nusrat Jahan, Most. Afia Akhter (2015) · BMC Research Notes
Folk medicine in the northern coast of Colombia: an overview
Harold Gómez–Estrada, Fredyc Díaz-Castillo, Luis A. Franco-Ospina, Jairo Mercado‐Camargo (2011) · Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine
Uses of medicinal plants by Haitian immigrants and their descendants in the Province of Camagüey, Cuba
Gabriele Volpato, Daimy Godínez, Ángela Beyra, A. L. H. Barreto (2009) · Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine
The chemical constituents of calabash (Crescentia cujete)
Ejelonu BC (2011) · AFRICAN JOURNAL OF BIOTECHNOLOGY
Ethnoveterinary knowledge of the inhabitants of Marajó Island, Eastern Amazonia, Brazil
Maria Vivina Barros Monteiro, Cláudia Maria Leal Bevilaqua, Maria das Dores Correia Palha, Roberta da Rocha Braga (2011) · Acta Amazonica
n-Alkyl glycosides and p-hydroxybenzoyloxy glucose from fruits of Crescentia cujete
Tetsuo Kaneko, Kazuhiro Ohtani, Ryoji Kasai, Kazuo Yamasaki (1998) · Phytochemistry
Bioactive Furanonaphthoquinones from Crescentia cujete
Carl E. Heltzel, A. A. Leslie Gunatilaka, Thomas E. Glass, David G. I. Kingston (1993) · Journal of Natural Products
Round and large: morphological and genetic consequences of artificial selection on the gourd tree Crescentia cujete by the Maya of the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico
Xitlali Aguirre‐Dugua, Luis E. Eguiarte, Antonio González‐Rodríguez, Alejandro Casas (2012) · Annals of Botany
In vitro Culture and Temporary Immersion Bioreactor Production of Crescentia cujete
Susan J. Murch, Chunzhao Liu, Rosaura M. Romero, Praveen K. Saxena (2004) · Plant Cell Tissue and Organ Culture (PCTOC)

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 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 143 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.