Species
+

Erythroxylum coca Lam.

Coca, Coca

Climate known 30 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

Erythroxylum coca is a species of flowering plant in the family Erythroxylaceae. It is one of the two species of cultivated coca.

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

About the genus · Erythroxylum

Erythroxylum is a genus of tropical flowering plants in the family Erythroxylaceae. Many of the approximately 200 species contain the tropane alkaloid cocaine, and two of the species within this genus, Erythroxylum coca and Erythroxylum novogranatense, both native to South America, are the main commercial source of cocaine and of the mild stimulant coca tea. Another species, Erythroxylum vaccinifolium is used as an aphrodisiac in Brazilian drinks and herbal medicine. More on Wikipedia ›

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

Family
Erythroxylaceae
Described by
Lam.
Native to
Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador +2
Wild records
253 in range· 157 open

At a glance

Warmest month
28°C
Jan, mean day; nights 21 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
2390mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Apr 265 mm (CHELSA)
Light
25–33DLI
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: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (October to May at the habitat (not shifted)). Habitat rain 2390 mm a year, wettest April at 265 mm, driest August at 121 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 25 to 33 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 16.1 °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 Erythroxylum bolivianum Burck; Erythroxylum chilpei E.Machado; Erythroxylum peruvianum Mitch. & Pascal; Erythroxylum peruvianum Mitch. & Pascal ex Steud.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (October to May at the habitat (not shifted)).

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

The rain rule reads no season: 70% of the year's rain (1811 mm of 2390 mm) takes 8 months, October to May. Mean temperature moves 2.3 °C between the warmest and coldest month. 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 2390 mm a year, wettest April at 265 mm, driest August at 121 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

2390 mm a year at the habitat, 1811 mm of it October to May. Wettest month April at 265 mm, driest August at 121 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1431 mm to 3822 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 33 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 25 to 33 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 37).

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 16.1 °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 16.1 °C, the absolute minimum 14.2 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 32.5 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 18.6 °C in July (across the envelope cells 11.3 °C to 22.4 °C), warmest day 28.2 °C in January (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 16.1 °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: 65 to 69% 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 Jun to 28 °C in Jan; mean night from 19 °C in Jul to 22 °C in Feb. The cold quarter, Jun to Aug, is the three months around the coldest night. 2390 mm of rain a year, most in Apr. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 203 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was 14.2 °C and the 99th-percentile day 32.5 °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°32.5° 99th-percentile day (undated)14.2° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400500mm rainDLI 25–33RH 65–69 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 203 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 / 21–3128 / 21–3128 / 21–3028 / 21–2927 / 20–2926 / 20–2826 / 19–2928 / 20–3028 / 21–3028 / 21–3028 / 21–3028 / 21–30
Night °C21 / 14–2322 / 14–2422 / 13–2421 / 13–2320 / 13–2319 / 12–2319 / 11–2219 / 12–2320 / 12–2321 / 13–2321 / 14–2321 / 14–23
Rain mm198 / 50–374197 / 88–368239 / 130–380265 / 107–429250 / 77–465164 / 50–440126 / 42–398121 / 42–343168 / 69–343228 / 111–375219 / 129–350215 / 100–349
DLI32 / 28–3632 / 28–3631 / 28–3628 / 26–3326 / 22–3125 / 21–3227 / 22–3431 / 26–3633 / 28–3733 / 27–3731 / 25–3631 / 27–35
RH %67 / 59–7168 / 59–7268 / 61–7268 / 63–7368 / 64–7367 / 63–7366 / 61–7365 / 60–7266 / 60–7167 / 62–7169 / 63–7268 / 62–71

Each figure is the median across the 203 grid cells holding the 236 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 1795:2025 (0.225, -78.725). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 14.2 °C, 1st-percentile night 16.1 °C, 99th-percentile day 32.5 °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 203 distinct grid cells holding the 236 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1795:2025 (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 0.00_-78.750, lapse-corrected -858 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 1005 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.
NativeBolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil North· introduced: Guinea-Bissau, Cameroon, Gulf of Guinea Is., Tanzania, Kazan-retto, Assam, Caroline Is.
Kew's description“shrub” · “wet tropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker4.652, -75.695 · in the densest population, 83 records (33% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 253 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 157 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 34 km away. 46 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 17 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 2° block of the 253 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Erythroxylum cocaErythroxylum cocaErythroxylum cocaErythroxylum cocaErythroxylum cocaErythroxylum cocaErythroxylum cocaErythroxylum coca

Photographs: (c) John G. Phillips, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Lucero Luna Montilla, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) Annika Lindqvist, some rights reserved (CC BY); no rights reserved · CC0 (3); (c) Frank Dietze, some rights reserved (CC BY).

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

Plant tropane alkaloid biosynthesis evolved independently in the Solanaceae and Erythroxylaceae
Jan Jirschitzka, Gregor W. Schmidt, Michael Reichelt, Bernd Schneider (2012) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
The first step in the biosynthesis of cocaine in Erythroxylum coca: the characterization of arginine and ornithine decarboxylases
Teresa Docimo, Michael Reichelt, Bernd Schneider, Marco Kai (2012) · Plant Molecular Biology
Gene Cloning and Nucleotide Sequencing and Properties of a Cocaine Esterase fromRhodococcussp. Strain MB1
Matthew M. Bresler, Susan J. Rosser, Amrik Basran, Neil C. Bruce (2000) · Applied and Environmental Microbiology
Toxicity of Formulated Glyphosate (Glyphos) and Cosmo-Flux to Larval and Juvenile Colombian Frogs 2. Field and Laboratory Microcosm Acute Toxicity
Manuel Hernando Bernal, Keith R. Solomon, Gabriel Carrasquilla (2009) · Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health
Biological activity of the alkaloids of Erythroxylum coca and Erythroxylum novogranatense
Michal Novák, C. A. Salemink, Inayat Khan (1984) · Journal of Ethnopharmacology
Biosystematics and Evolution of Cultivated Coca (Erythroxylaceae)
Bruce A. Bohm, Fred R. Ganders, Timothy Plowman (1982) · Systematic Botany
Beauty of the beast: anticholinergic tropane alkaloids in therapeutics
Kyu Hwan Shim, Min Ju Kang, Niti Sharma, Seong Soo A. An (2022) · Natural Products and Bioprospecting
BOTANICAL MUSEUM LEAFLETS
James A. Düke, David J Aulik (2016)
Toxicity of Formulated Glyphosate (Glyphos) and Cosmo-Flux to Larval Colombian Frogs 1. Laboratory Acute Toxicity
Manuel Hernando Bernal, Keith R. Solomon, Gabriel Carrasquilla (2009) · Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health

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 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (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 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not asked
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; 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 82 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.