Prunus mexicana, Bowman Springs Park, Arlington, TX, US

Prunus mexicana S.Watson

Bigtree Plum, Inch Plum, Mexican plum, Mexican plum

Climate known 68 photographs Temperate garden plant

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

Prunus mexicana, commonly known as the Mexican plum, inch plum, or bigtree plum, is a North American species of plum tree.

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

About the genus · Prunus

Prunus is a genus of flowering trees and shrubs from the rose family (Rosaceae) that produce stone fruits, or drupes. As of March 2024, the genus has about 340 accepted species, including almonds, apricots, cherries, peaches, and plums. It has a cosmopolitan distribution, being native to the temperate regions of North America, the neotropics of South America, and temperate and tropical regions of Eurasia and Africa.

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

Family

Rosaceae

Described by

S.Watson

Native to

Illinois, Iowa, Kansas +11

Wild records

1623 in range· 523 open

At a glance

Warmest month

34°C

Aug, mean day; nights 24 °C (CHELSA)

Rain

1040mm/yr

12 wet months · peak May 126 mm (CHELSA)

Light

16–43DLI

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 temperate garden plant by the genus Prunus, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (March to July and September to November in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 1040 mm a year, wettest May at 126 mm, driest January at 60 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 16 to 43 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -6.5 °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 Prunus americana subsp. mollis Torr. & A.Gray; Prunus americana var. lanata Sudw.; Prunus fultonensis Sarg.; Prunus lanata (Sudw.) Mack. & Bush; Prunus mexicana var. flutonensis (Sarg.) Sarg. and 6 more.

Cultivation

Grouped as a temperate garden plant by the genus Prunus, 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: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (March to July and September to November in the northern hemisphere).

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

The rain rule reads no season: 70% of the year's rain (770 mm of 1040 mm) takes 8 months, March to July and September to November. Mean temperature moves 20.7 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: September to January and March to May.

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 1040 mm a year, wettest May at 126 mm, driest January at 60 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1040 mm a year at the habitat, 770 mm of it March to July and September to November. Wettest month May at 126 mm, driest January at 60 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 870 mm to 1437 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: 16 to 43 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 16 to 43 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 13, the highest 90th-percentile month 44).

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 -6.5 °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 -6.5 °C, the absolute minimum -17.0 °C, about 40 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 42.7 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 3.6 °C in January (across the envelope cells -2.6 °C to 6.6 °C), warmest day 33.7 °C in August (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -6.5 °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: 56 to 59% 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

day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 860 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

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
Day °C	14 / 6–17	16 / 9–19	20 / 15–22	25 / 20–26	28 / 24–29	32 / 29–32	34 / 31–34	34 / 31–35	30 / 26–31	25 / 20–27	19 / 14–22	14 / 7–17
Night °C	4 / -3–7	6 / -1–8	9 / 4–11	14 / 9–15	18 / 14–20	22 / 19–23	24 / 21–25	24 / 21–25	20 / 16–22	15 / 11–17	10 / 5–12	5 / -1–8
Rain mm	60 / 34–123	69 / 46–130	90 / 65–130	89 / 63–125	126 / 101–147	113 / 102–138	77 / 52–122	70 / 51–108	85 / 74–116	109 / 83–133	81 / 57–129	71 / 44–140
DLI	18 / 16–19	23 / 21–24	29 / 27–30	35 / 34–37	37 / 37–39	41 / 40–42	43 / 40–44	40 / 37–41	33 / 31–34	25 / 23–26	19 / 16–20	16 / 13–17
RH %	58 / 56–59	57 / 56–59	56 / 55–58	56 / 54–58	59 / 57–61	59 / 57–61	57 / 54–61	56 / 53–60	56 / 55–59	56 / 55–58	58 / 56–59	58 / 57–60

Each figure is the median across the 860 grid cells holding the 1528 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 1142:1654 (32.875, -97.275). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -17.0 °C, 1st-percentile night -6.5 °C, 99th-percentile day 42.7 °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 860 distinct grid cells holding the 1528 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1142:1654 (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 33.00_-97.500, lapse-corrected -60 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 194 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.

NativeIllinois, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Indiana, Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee, Mexico Northeast

Kew's description“tree” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here

Map marker32.248, -97.399 · in the densest population, 691 records (43% of those in range)

Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1623 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 523 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 31 km away. 5 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 95 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 1623 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Photographs: (c) Sam Kieschnick, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) Brand R, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3); (c) Cyrus Harp, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) (3).

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

Influence of Irrigation Regime on Growth of Select Field-grown Tree Species in a Semi-arid Climate

Lindsey Fox, Thayne Montague (2009) · Journal of Environmental Horticulture

Identification of Plants in the 1584 Murals of the Casa del Deán, Puebla, México

Arthur O. Tucker, Jules Janick (2017) · Notulae Botanicae Horti Agrobotanici Cluj-Napoca

Successional Stages in a Hardwood Bottomland Forest near Dallas, Texas

Elray S. Nixon (1975) · The Southwestern Naturalist

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