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Croton chilensis; photograph Nicolás Lavandero, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF CC BYNicolás Lavandero, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF

Croton chilensis Müll.Arg.

Euphorbiaceae · Chile North

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Croton chilensis, photograph Nicolás Lavandero, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIFCroton chilensis, photograph Nicolás Lavandero, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIFCroton chilensis, photograph Jorge Muñoz Camadro, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIFCroton chilensis, photograph Jorge Muñoz Camadro, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIFCroton chilensis, photograph Jorge Muñoz Camadro, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIFCroton chilensis, photograph Jorge Muñoz Camadro, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF 14 photographs ›
Habitat figures
Coldest month, mean nightly low
13.3°C
Jul and Sep at the habitat, not a floor; extremes not used (sea cell) CHELSA
Warmest month, mean daily high
22°C
Jan, Feb and Mar at the habitat CHELSA
Rain a year (median across the range)
48mm
No month of 25 mm or more in the median year CHELSA
Open-sky light
26–57DLI
Lowest to highest month (DLI) CHELSA
The year in your months, northern hemisphere
  1. Jan
  2. Feb
  3. Mar
  4. Apr
  5. May
  6. Jun
  7. Jul
  8. Aug
  9. Sep
  10. Oct
  11. Nov
  12. Dec
50 mm of rain in the median year, under the rule's 120 mm, so no rainy season is read; the cooler six months are November to April (May to October at the habitat). rain and temperature rules, CHELSA
Northern hemisphere unless you set your site. The chart is in the habitat's months.

Summary

Croton chilensis is a species of flowering plant in the family Euphorbiaceae. It is a shrub endemic to Northern Chile, distributed in the Antofagasta region.

Quoted from Wikipedia, "Croton chilensis", CC BY-SA 4.0.

Cultivation

Seasons

Rain at the habitat is 50 mm in the median year (across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). Under 120 mm the rain rule reads no rainy season, and the growing-season rule infers nothing from it. The temperature rule reads the cooler six months as May to October. Months are the habitat's, southern hemisphere; shifted six months for a northern-hemisphere collection: November to April.

Rain

50 mm in the median year at the habitat. Wettest month July at 8 mm, driest month April at 2 mm; 8 months under 5 mm. Across the grid cells of the range the year's total runs 42 mm to 62 mm, the 10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year. The median of the cells' own yearly totals, 48 mm, is the year's rain at the top of the page; the 50 mm here is the median year's, the twelve monthly medians added, which the rain rule reads. Habitat calendar, southern hemisphere; median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA.

Light

Open sky over the habitat: 26 to 57 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 24, the highest 90th-percentile month 58).

Warmth and air
Temperature

Monthly means: the coldest month's mean nightly low 13.3 °C in July and September (across the grid cells of the range 11.0 °C to 14.0 °C), the warmest month's mean daily high 22.4 °C in February (median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). Cold floor: none read. The nearest figure is 13.3 °C, the coldest month's mean nightly low, July and September, in the median year (CHELSA); a month's mean of its nightly lows is warmer than the nights a floor is read from. The daily extremes were read at a weather cell that is mostly sea and are not used.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 52 to 64% across the year (monthly means, median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

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.

Seasons. Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the grid cells of the range: 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 moves 4 °C or more and the habitat lies 10° or more from the equator. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain. CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the grid cells of the range. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light. 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.

Temperature. CHELSA monthly means, median year across the grid cells of the range. No cold floor is read without a daily extremes series; the coldest month's mean nightly low named in its sentence is not one. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity. CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the grid cells of the range.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat months, southern hemisphere

Habitat climate of Croton chilensis through the yearWarmest months January, February and March, mean daily high 22 °C; coldest months July and September, mean nightly low 13.3 °C; 50 mm of rain in the median year (the twelve monthly medians added). Medians across the range, from CHELSA. Habitat months, southern hemisphere.10°15°20°25°°C · day and nightcold quarter010mm rainDLI 26–57RH 52–64%JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain medians and 10th–90th percentile across 8 habitat cells, CHELSA cold quarter: the three months around the coldest month's mean nightly low DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C22 / 20–2322 / 21–2322 / 20–2220 / 19–2119 / 18–2019 / 17–1918 / 17–1818 / 17–1918 / 17–1918 / 18–2019 / 19–2121 / 20–22
Night °C17 / 15–1817 / 15–1817 / 15–1816 / 14–1615 / 13–1614 / 12–1513 / 11–1413 / 11–1413 / 11–1414 / 12–1414 / 13–1515 / 14–16
Rain mm5 / 3–63 / 2–43 / 3–42 / 2–35 / 4–67 / 6–98 / 7–94 / 4–53 / 3–43 / 2–33 / 2–34 / 3–4
DLI55 / 54–5651 / 50–5345 / 43–4636 / 35–3929 / 27–3226 / 24–2827 / 26–3033 / 32–3642 / 41–4450 / 49–5256 / 55–5757 / 56–58
RH %64 / 62–6564 / 61–6562 / 60–6459 / 55–6155 / 51–5852 / 48–5552 / 47–5552 / 48–5554 / 50–5756 / 52–5958 / 55–6161 / 58–63

The daily extremes were read at a NASA POWER cell that is 36% land: neither it nor the next candidates whose coldest month's mean nightly low is within 2 °C of the median across cells sit in a POWER cell that is mostly land, and the rule reads a cold floor only from a cell that is mostly land, so none is read for this species. Nor is the coldest month's mean nightly low taken as one: it is a mean of a month's lows, not its coldest night. What that cell gave over 44 years: absolute minimum 9.0 °C, 1st-percentile night 11.5 °C, 99th-percentile day 25.1 °C.

How this section is made
Each figure is the median across the 8 grid cells holding the 22 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. A dash is a month one or more of those cells has no figure for in the grid (a variable CHELSA does not carry there), so no median is taken rather than one over fewer cells. Extremes and elevation were read at a typical spot in the range, cell 2300:2190 (-25.025, -70.475). Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Across the range: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 8 distinct grid cells holding 22 of the 22 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 2300:2190 (its coldest month's mean nightly low nearest the median across cells, though its NASA POWER cell is only 36% land and none of the 6 next candidates within 2 °C of the median was mostly land); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell -25.00_-70.625, lapse-corrected -212 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 249 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 the cells of the in-range records placed well enough to read one, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeChile North · 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 marker-24.935, -70.487 · in the densest population, 31 records (100% of those in range)
Kew's description“shrub” · “desert or dry shrubland” · quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Evidence usedThe map marker rests on all 31 georeferenced records inside the native range; the climate across the range on the 22 of them placed to within 10 km; the map shows only the 10 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 4 km away. 2 records outside the WCVP native range not used. 9 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 31 in-range records; it decides nothing. Records outside the native range, living specimens and records marked introduced are not used; which records count.

Photographs

Croton chilensis, photograph 1did not loadCroton chilensis, photograph 2did not loadCroton chilensis, photograph 3did not loadCroton chilensis, photograph 4did not loadCroton chilensis, photograph 5did not loadCroton chilensis, photograph 6did not load

Photographs: Nicolás Lavandero, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF (2); Jorge Muñoz Camadro, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF (4).

Similar habitat climate The 6 nearest by mean daily high, mean nightly low and rain, month by month. How.

Dicliptera paposana Dicliptera paposana Acanthaceae Photo: CC BY, Rodrigo Castillo TapiaEriosyce paucicostata Eriosyce paucicostata Cactaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, Nicolás Villaseca MerinoLoxanthocereus sextonianus Loxanthocereus sextonianus Cactaceae Photo: CC BY, Howard F. Schwartz, Colorado State…Nicotiana knightiana Nicotiana knightiana Solanaceae Photo: CC BY, Ben Lyle BedardCopiapoa gigantea Copiapoa gigantea Cactaceae Photo: CC BY, Jorge Muñoz CamadroPuya boliviensis Puya boliviensis Bromeliaceae Photo: CC BY, Jorge Muñoz Camadro

Other Croton 49 in the reference

Croton alabamensis Croton alabamensis Alabama croton Photo: CC0, author not statedCroton bonplandianus Croton bonplandianus Bonpland's croton Photo: CC BY, Rocío Esmeralda PoseCroton californicus Croton californicus California croton Photo: CC0, author not statedCroton capitatus Croton capitatus Woolly croton Photo: CC BY, CH HemphillCroton cascarilloides Croton cascarilloides Euphorbiaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, vrxzCroton ciliatoglandulifer Croton ciliatoglandulifer Bush croton Photo: CC BY, Cody HinchliffCroton coriaceus Croton coriaceus Euphorbiaceae Photo: CC BY, Dick CulbertCroton cortesianus Croton cortesianus Cortez's croton Photo: CC BY-SA, Jalil R.Croton draco Croton draco Weeping blood Photo: CC BY, River Ahlquist Croton elegans Euphorbiaceae Croton eluteria Cascarilla Croton flavens Croton flavens Yellow balsam Photo: CC BY, Matteo Bellucci all 50 ›

Names & registers

Also known as Oxydectes chilensis. (GBIF Backbone)

GBIFPOWOIPNIWFOWikidataWikipedia

The record

Family
Euphorbiaceae
Described by
Müll.Arg.
Native to
Chile North
Wild records
31 in range · 10 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 2026-10-22
GBIF species record gbif.species answeredasked 2026-10-22
GBIF synonyms gbif.synonyms answeredasked 2026-10-22
GBIF common names gbif.vernacular answeredasked 2026-10-22names fetched 2026-10-22
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 answeredasked 2026-10-22
Daily extremes (NASA POWER) climate.extremes answeredasked 2026-10-22NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell -25.00_-70.625, lapse-corrected -212 m at 6.5 °C/km; read, and set aside: NASA POWER's cell is mostly sea (36% land), so no cold floor is shown
Wikidata wikidata answeredasked 2026-10-22
Wikipedia wikipedia answeredasked 2026-10-22
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 answeredasked 2026-10-22
Wikimedia Commons commons answeredasked 2026-10-22
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 10 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.

Cultifolio

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