Species
+

Peperomia pellucida (L.) Kunth

Buche de paloma, Clearweed, Corazon de hombre, Damuh-damuh

Climate known 43 photographs Tropical foliage plant
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

Peperomia pellucida is an annual, shallow-rooted herb, usually growing to a height of about 15 to 45 cm, It is characterized by succulent stems, shiny, heart-shaped, fleshy leaves and tiny, dot-like seeds attached to several fruiting spikes. It has a mustard-like odor when crushed.

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

About the genus · Peperomia

Peperomia is one of the two large genera of the family Piperaceae. It is estimated that there are over 1,000 species, occurring in all tropical and subtropical regions of the world. They are concentrated in South and Central America, but may also be found in southern North America, the Caribbean islands, Africa, Oceania, and southern and eastern parts of Asia. More on Wikipedia ›

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

Family
Piperaceae
Described by
(L.) Kunth
Native to
Benin, Burkina, Ghana +65
Wild records
893 in range· 663 open

At a glance

Warmest month
29°C
Mar, mean day; nights 23 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
1793mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Jun 201 mm (CHELSA)
Light
29–35DLI
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 tropical foliage plant by the genus Peperomia, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (May to December at the habitat (not shifted)). Habitat rain 1793 mm a year, wettest June at 201 mm, driest February at 88 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 29 to 35 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 18.8 °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 Micropiper exiguum (Blume) Miq.; Micropiper pellucidum (L.) Miq.; Micropiper tenellum Klotzsch; Micropiper tenellum Klotzsch ex Miq.; Peperomia concinna (Haw.) A.Dietr. and 29 more.

Cultivation

Grouped as a tropical foliage plant by the genus Peperomia, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). The table supplies one figure for this group, a conventional minimum for the cold floor, and no prose.

Its year Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (May to December 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 (1351 mm of 1793 mm) takes 8 months, May to December. Mean temperature moves 0.7 °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 1793 mm a year, wettest June at 201 mm, driest February at 88 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1793 mm a year at the habitat, 1351 mm of it May to December. Wettest month June at 201 mm, driest February at 88 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1137 mm to 3455 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 35 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 29 to 35 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 23, 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 18.8 °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 18.8 °C, the absolute minimum 15.7 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 35.7 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 22.0 °C in July (across the envelope cells 16.5 °C to 24.9 °C), warmest day 28.6 °C in March (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 18.8 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER); the archetype table's minimum for a tropical foliage plant, 12 °C, is lower and does not raise it.

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, and the archetype table's group minimum where that is higher. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 64 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 Jul to 29 °C in Mar; mean night from 22 °C in Jul to 23 °C in May. The cold quarter, Jun to Aug, is the three months around the coldest night. 1793 mm of rain a year, most in Jun. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 767 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was 15.7 °C and the 99th-percentile day 35.7 °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°35.7° 99th-percentile day (undated)15.7° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400500mm rainDLI 29–35RH 64–67 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 767 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 / 25–3128 / 25–3229 / 26–3229 / 26–3228 / 25–3128 / 24–3128 / 24–3128 / 25–3128 / 25–3128 / 26–3128 / 25–3128 / 25–31
Night °C22 / 18–2422 / 18–2423 / 18–2523 / 18–2523 / 18–2522 / 17–2522 / 17–2522 / 17–2522 / 18–2522 / 18–2522 / 18–2522 / 18–24
Rain mm101 / 13–33088 / 13–297119 / 19–314134 / 44–357173 / 59–418201 / 27–419183 / 17–416160 / 22–390174 / 48–418167 / 53–385153 / 36–325140 / 18–310
DLI32 / 25–3935 / 29–3935 / 29–4134 / 27–4330 / 24–4129 / 23–4130 / 23–4133 / 25–4033 / 26–3933 / 26–3932 / 25–3831 / 24–38
RH %64 / 57–7064 / 57–6964 / 57–7065 / 58–7066 / 59–7167 / 60–7266 / 59–7266 / 58–7266 / 59–7266 / 60–7265 / 60–7165 / 59–70

Each figure is the median across the 767 grid cells holding the 869 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 1562:1878 (11.875, -86.075). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 15.7 °C, 1st-percentile night 18.8 °C, 99th-percentile day 35.7 °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 767 distinct grid cells holding the 869 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1562:1878 (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 12.00_-86.250, lapse-corrected +226 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 367 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.
NativeBenin, Burkina, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Togo, Burundi, Central African Republic, Cameroon, Congo, Gabon, Gulf of Guinea Is., Zaïre, Somalia, Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Angola, Mozambique, Zambia, Madagascar, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mexico Central, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southwest, Mexico Southeast, Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Leeward Is. AB Ant, Netherlands Antilles, Puerto Rico, Southwest Caribbean, Trinidad-Tobago, Venezuelan Antilles, Windward Is., French Guiana, Guyana, Surinam, Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil West-Central, Brazil Northeast, Brazil Southeast, Brazil North, Brazil South, Argentina Northwest, Paraguay· introduced: Gulf States, China South-Central, Hainan, China Southeast, Taiwan, Assam, Bangladesh, East Himalaya, India, Malaya, Northern Territory, Queensland, Western Australia, Samoa, Tokelau-Manihiki, Society Is., Tuamotu, Caroline Is., Marianas, Marshall Is., Hawaii
Kew's description“annual or lithophyte” · “wet tropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker9.833, -84.567 · in the densest population, 153 records (17% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 893 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 663 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 387 km away. 788 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 24 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 893 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Peperomia pellucidaPeperomia pellucidaPeperomia pellucidaPeperomia pellucidaPeperomia pellucidaPeperomia pellucidaPeperomia pellucidaPeperomia pellucida

Photographs: no rights reserved · CC0; (c) 胡正恆(Jackson Hu), some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) zebedeugalinha, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3); (c) Douglas Goldman, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) (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 Peperomia pellucida, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Recommended Medicinal Plants as Source of Natural Products: A Review
Henry Ivanz A. Boy, Alfred Joshua H. Rutilla, Kimbberly A. Santos, Allister Matthew T. Ty (2018) · Digital Chinese Medicine
Bioactive Compounds from Peperomia pellucida
Su Xu, Na Li, Mengmeng Ning, Caihong Zhou (2006) · Journal of Natural Products
Medicinal plants
Jitendra P. Srivastava, J. D. H. Lambert, Noel D. Vietmeyer (1996) · World Bank technical paper
Anti-inflammatory and analgesic activity of Peperomia pellucida (L.) HBK (Piperaceae)
Maria de Fátima Arrigoni-Blank, Elena G Dmitrieva, Elaine Maria Franzotti, Ângelo R. Antoniolli (2004) · Journal of Ethnopharmacology
A dimeric ArC 2 compound from Peperomia pellucida
Joaquim de Carvalho Bayma, Mara S.P. Arruda, Adolfo H. Müller, Alberto C. Arruda (2000) · Phytochemistry
Analgesic activity of Peperomia pellucida aerial parts in mice
Peter I. Aziba, A. A. Adedeji, Martins Ekor, O. Adeyemi (2001) · Fitoterapia
Neuropharmacological effects of Peperomia pellucida leaves in mice
Alam Khan, Moizur Rahman, Md. Shariful Islam (2008)
In vivo Anti-inflammatory and in vitro Antioxidant Activities of Peperomia pellucida
A.F. Mutee, Salizawati Muhamad Salhimi, Mun Fei Yam, Chung Pin Lim (2010) · International Journal of Pharmacology
Antibacterial activity of Hygrophila stricta and Peperomia pellucida
Muhammad Rafiullah Khan, A.D. Omoloso (2002) · Fitoterapia

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 Peperomia 8 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (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 179 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.