Species
+

Dorstenia contrajerva L.

Contrayerba, Contrayerva Root, Mapipire Root, Refriyau (Trinidad & Tobago); Herbe-chapeau (Lesser Antilles)

Climate known 61 photographs Cactus or succulent
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

Dorstenia contrajerva is a plant species in the family Moraceae. It is native to northern South America and Central America, and is cultivated elsewhere. The species name "contrajerva" is the Latinized form of the plant's Spanish name, "contrahierba", a name for plants used for treating poisoning and venomous bites and stings, and for which its rootstocks are used in folk medicine. It is the type species of the Dorstenia genus and was first described by Carl Linnaeus in 1753.

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

About the genus · Dorstenia

Dorstenia is a genus within the mulberry family, Moraceae. Depending on the author, there are said to be 100 to 170 species within this genus, second only in number to the genus Ficus within Moraceae. Plants of the World Online currently accepts 122 species. More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Dorstenia”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Moraceae
Described by
L.
Native to
Mexico Central, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Gulf +20
Wild records
1302 in range· 1085 open

At a glance

Warmest month
30°C
Apr, mean day; nights 22 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
1783mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Sep 296 mm (CHELSA)
Light
25–40DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Grouped as a cactus or succulent by the genus Dorstenia, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a sharp rainy season, June to October at the habitat (not shifted); the temperature curve is flat (3.9 °C of range), so no growing season is inferred. Habitat rain 1783 mm a year, wettest September at 296 mm, driest February at 40 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 25 to 40 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 14.7 °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 Dorstenia alexiteria L.; Dorstenia contrajerva subsp. tenuiloba S.F.Blake; Dorstenia contrajerva var. contrajerva; Dorstenia contrajerva var. houstonii (L.) Bureau; Dorstenia contrajerva var. houstonii L. and 11 more.

Cultivation

Grouped as a cactus or succulent by the genus Dorstenia, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). The table holds no figure for this group, which spans too much for one minimum; the cold floor is the habitat's alone, and no prose comes from the table.

Its year Rain rule: a sharp rainy season, June to October at the habitat (not shifted); the temperature curve is flat (3.9 °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 (1278 mm of 1783 mm) falls in June to October. The temperature curve is flat, 3.9 °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; with a flat temperature curve 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 1783 mm a year, wettest September at 296 mm, driest February at 40 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1783 mm a year at the habitat, 1278 mm of it June to October. Wettest month September at 296 mm, driest February at 40 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1114 mm to 3430 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: 25 to 40 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 25 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 22, 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 14.7 °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 14.7 °C, the absolute minimum 10.1 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 34.2 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 18.5 °C in January (across the envelope cells 12.7 °C to 22.3 °C), warmest day 29.9 °C in April (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 14.7 °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 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

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 26 °C in Jan to 30 °C in Apr; mean night from 19 °C in Jan to 23 °C in Jun. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 1783 mm of rain a year, most in Sep. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 839 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was 10.1 °C and the 99th-percentile day 34.2 °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°30°35°40°34.2° 99th-percentile day (undated)10.1° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400500600mm rainDLI 25–40RH 60–68 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 839 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 °C26 / 22–2927 / 23–3129 / 25–3330 / 26–3430 / 25–3429 / 24–3228 / 24–3229 / 24–3328 / 24–3128 / 23–3027 / 22–2926 / 22–29
Night °C19 / 13–2219 / 13–2320 / 14–2322 / 16–2422 / 17–2423 / 17–2522 / 17–2422 / 17–2422 / 17–2421 / 16–2320 / 15–2319 / 13–23
Rain mm48 / 9–13040 / 9–10441 / 12–9659 / 26–195133 / 80–387261 / 152–445241 / 140–453258 / 154–469296 / 188–517222 / 121–453119 / 38–29065 / 15–195
DLI27 / 23–3531 / 28–3837 / 34–4240 / 34–4339 / 30–4235 / 29–3836 / 29–3936 / 30–3932 / 28–3529 / 26–3327 / 24–3225 / 22–32
RH %64 / 56–6962 / 56–6860 / 55–6661 / 55–6763 / 57–7067 / 62–7266 / 61–7267 / 62–7268 / 64–7267 / 63–7266 / 60–7265 / 58–71

Each figure is the median across the 839 grid cells holding the 1276 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 1523:1801 (13.825, -89.925). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 10.1 °C, 1st-percentile night 14.7 °C, 99th-percentile day 34.2 °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 839 distinct grid cells holding the 1276 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1523:1801 (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 14.00_-90.000, lapse-corrected +153 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 761 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, Panama, Leeward Is. AB Ant, Puerto Rico, Trinidad-Tobago, Venezuelan Antilles, Windward Is., Guyana, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru· introduced: Ogasawara-shoto, India, Vietnam, Jawa, Florida
Kew's description“perennial or rhizomatous geophyte” · “seasonally dry tropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker16.8, -93.207 · in the densest population, 865 records (66% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1302 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 1085 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 11 km away. 35 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 26 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 1302 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Dorstenia contrajervaDorstenia contrajervaDorstenia contrajervaDorstenia contrajervaDorstenia contrajervaDorstenia contrajervaDorstenia contrajervaDorstenia contrajerva

Photographs: (c) Ricard Busquets Reverte, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); no rights reserved · CC0; (c) Jorge I. Merchán Mayorga, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) (3); (c) Christine Loew, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2).

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

Isolation, Total Synthesis, and Relative Stereochemistry of a Dihydrofurocoumarin from Dorstenia contrajerva
Ricardo Tovar‐Miranda, Raúl Cortés-Garcı́a, Norma Francenia Santos-Sánchez, Pedro Joseph‐Nathan (1998) · Journal of Natural Products
Leishmanicidal Activity of Yucatecan Medicinal Plants on Leishmania Species Responsible for Cutaneous Leishmaniasis
Giulia Getti, Priyanka Durgadoss, Dafne B Domínguez-Carmona, Zhelmy Martín‐Quintal (2009) · Journal of Parasitology
Structure revision of a furanocoumarin from Dorstenia contrajerva
Christian Terreaux, Marc Maillard, H. Stoeckli‐Evans, Mahabir P. Gupta (1995) · Phytochemistry
Screening of Native Plants from Yucatan for Anti–Giardia lamblia. Activity
Sergio R. Peraza‐Sánchez, Seydi Poot-Kantún, Luis W. Toores-Tapia, Filogonio May‐Pat (2005) · Pharmaceutical Biology
Furanocoumarins from the aerial parts of Dorstenia contrajerva
Armando Cáceres, Luca Rastrelli, Francesco De Simone, Giovanni Martino (2001) · Fitoterapia
Flora vascular de la selva mediana subcaducifolia del centro de Veracruz, México
Olivia Margarita Palacios-Wassenaar, Gonzálo Castillo-Campos, Santiago Mario Vázquez-Torres, Silvia Del Amo-Rodríguez (2015) · Revista Mexicana de Biodiversidad
Isolation and characterization of anti‐HIV peptides from Dorstenia contrajerva and Treculia obovoidea
Heidi R. Bokesch, Romila D. Charan, Karina M. Meragelman, John A. Beutler (2004) · FEBS Letters
A furanocoumarin from Dorstenia contrajerva
Lee A. Swain, J.M.E. Quirke, Stephen A. Winkle, Kelsey R. Downum (1991) · Phytochemistry
Asociación entre abejas sin aguijón (Apidae, Meliponini) y la flora del bosque seco en la región norte de Guanacaste, Costa Rica
Ana Isabel Barquero Elizondo, Ingrid Aguilar Monge, Ana Lucía Méndez Cartín, Gustavo Hernández Sánchez (2018) · Revista de Ciencias Ambientales
Metabolites isolated from the rhizomes of Dorstenia contrajerva with anti-leishmanial activity
Héctor A. Peniche‐Pavía, Deisy Medrano-Nahuat, Luis W. Torres‐Tapia, Mirza Mut-Martı́n (2016) · Phytochemistry Letters
Principales plantas de importancia alimenticia para la abeja nativa sin aguijón Trigona fulviventris (Guérin- Méneville) en Pocosol, Guanacaste, Costa Rica
Alejandra Barrantes-Vásquez, Luis Sánchez-Chaves, Gustavo Sánchez, William Montero Flores (2018) · Revista Forestal Mesoamericana Kurú

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.

Other Dorstenia 116 in the reference

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