Species
+

Pseudophoenix sargentii H.Wendl. ex Sarg.

Buccaneer Palm, Florida Cherry Palm, Florida cherry palm, Sargent's Cherry Palm

Climate known 40 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

Pseudophoenix sargentii, commonly known as the Florida cherry palm or buccaneer palm, is a medium-sized palm native to the northern Caribbean, eastern Mexico, and extreme southeast Florida in the United States.

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

About the genus · Pseudophoenix

Pseudophoenix is a genus of palms which is native to the wider Caribbean. Three species of the four species are endemic to Hispaniola, while the fourth, P. sargentii, is widely distributed in the northern Caribbean, Florida, and the Yucatán Peninsula.

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

Family
Arecaceae
Described by
H.Wendl. ex Sarg.
Native to
Florida, Mexico Southeast, Belize +7
Wild records
171 in range· 93 open

At a glance

Warmest month
30°C
Jul, mean day; nights 26 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
1201mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Sep 171 mm (CHELSA)
Light
23–42DLI
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 Arecaceae, which is usually but not always one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a summer growing season, May to October in the northern hemisphere (May to October at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 1201 mm a year, wettest September at 171 mm, driest February at 48 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 23 to 42 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 18.4 °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 Chamaephoenix sargentii (H.Wendl. ex Sarg.) Curtiss; Cyclospathe northropii O.F.Cook; Pseudophoenix gracilis Ekman ex Burret; Pseudophoenix linearis O.F.Cook; Pseudophoenix navassana Ekman and 11 more.

Cultivation

Grouped as a tropical foliage plant by Arecaceae, which is usually but not always 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: a summer growing season, May to October in the northern hemisphere (May to October at the habitat, northern).

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

The rain rule reads a summer growing season: 70% of the year's rain (847 mm of 1201 mm) falls in May to October, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 27.1 °C against a yearly mean of 25.7 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: November to April.

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 1201 mm a year, wettest September at 171 mm, driest February at 48 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1201 mm a year at the habitat, 847 mm of it May to October. Wettest month September at 171 mm, driest February at 48 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 961 mm to 1514 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: 23 to 42 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 23 to 42 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 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 18.4 °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 18.4 °C, the absolute minimum 15.1 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 35.7 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 21.4 °C in January (across the envelope cells 18.8 °C to 23.4 °C), warmest day 29.6 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 18.4 °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: 60 to 64% 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 Jul; mean night from 21 °C in Jan to 26 °C in Aug. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 1201 mm of rain a year, most in Sep. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 54 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was 15.1 °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)15.1° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter050100150200250mm rainDLI 23–42RH 60–64 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 54 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 / 23–2726 / 23–2827 / 24–3027 / 25–3128 / 26–3229 / 28–3230 / 28–3230 / 28–3229 / 28–3128 / 27–3027 / 25–2826 / 24–27
Night °C21 / 19–2322 / 19–2322 / 20–2423 / 21–2424 / 23–2526 / 24–2626 / 24–2726 / 24–2726 / 24–2725 / 23–2623 / 21–2522 / 20–24
Rain mm49 / 41–6748 / 38–6256 / 40–7458 / 36–86119 / 64–162147 / 94–222114 / 78–160135 / 96–200171 / 132–233161 / 111–20388 / 63–12155 / 44–82
DLI25 / 24–2930 / 29–3436 / 35–3841 / 40–4342 / 40–4340 / 38–4342 / 40–4440 / 39–4235 / 33–3830 / 29–3326 / 25–2923 / 22–27
RH %60 / 58–6260 / 59–6260 / 58–6261 / 58–6263 / 60–6464 / 63–6663 / 62–6563 / 62–6564 / 63–6663 / 61–6661 / 59–6461 / 59–63

Each figure is the median across the 54 grid cells holding the 74 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 1377:2070 (21.125, -76.475). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 15.1 °C, 1st-percentile night 18.4 °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 54 distinct grid cells holding the 74 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1377:2070 (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 21.00_-76.250, lapse-corrected -34 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 24 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.
NativeFlorida, Mexico Southeast, Belize, Bahamas, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Puerto Rico, Turks-Caicos Is., Windward Is.
Kew's description“tree” · “seasonally dry tropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker21.473, -87.778 · in the densest population, 81 records (47% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 171 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 93 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 37 km away. 25 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 97 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 171 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Pseudophoenix sargentiiPseudophoenix sargentiiPseudophoenix sargentiiPseudophoenix sargentiiPseudophoenix sargentiiPseudophoenix sargentiiPseudophoenix sargentiiPseudophoenix sargentii

Photographs: no rights reserved · CC0 (5); (c) Sebastián de Jesús Herrera Buenfil, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Eric Knight, 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 Pseudophoenix sargentii, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Occurrence of a 16SrIV Group Phytoplasma not Previously Associated with Palm Species in Yucatan, Mexico
Roberto Vázquez-Euán, N. A. Harrison, María Narváez, Carlos Oropeza (2011) · Plant Disease
Genetic evaluation of a reintroduction of Sargent's Cherry Palm,Pseudophoenix sargentii1
Tonya D. Fotinos, Sandra Namoff, Carl E. Lewis, Joyce Maschinski (2015) · The Journal of the Torrey Botanical Society
Ex Situ Conservation of Large and Small Plant Populations Illustrates Limitations of Common Conservation Metrics
M. Patrick Griffith, Falon Cartwright, Michael S. Dosmann, Jeremie B. Fant (2021) · International Journal of Plant Sciences
First report of Phoma leaf spot disease on cherry palm caused byPhoma herbarumin Thailand
Jaturong Kumla, Nakarin Suwannarach, Saisamorn Lumyong (2016) · Canadian Journal of Plant Pathology
Microsatellite markers developed for the Caribbean palm Pseudophoenix sargentii: two PCR-based methods
Sandra Namoff, Javier Francisco‐Ortega, Scott Zona, Carl E. Lewis (2010) · Conservation Genetics Resources
Saltwater intrusion ecophysiological effects on Pseudophoenix sargentii, Roystonea regia, Sabal palmetto “Lisa,” and Thrinax radiata in South Florida
Amir Ali Khoddamzadeh, Jason Flores, M. Patrick Griffith, Bárbara Nogueira Souza Costa (2023) · Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution
Variaciones en la morfología polínica de Arecaceae en Cuba:abertura tricotomosulcada y estratificación de la exina.
Sonia Machado Rodríguez (2013) · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals)
Estudio demográfico de Pseudophoenix sargentii
Rafael Durán Garcı́a, Miguel Franco (1992) · Bulletin de l’Institut français d’études andines
Vulnerability of species of trees from the mexican carribbean: With one map and 2 tables
Odilón Sánchez Sánchez, Gerald A. Islebe (2001) · Feddes Repertorium
Conservation Horticulture for Yarey Palm and Buccaneer Palm: Substrate and Sowing Depth Affect Germination and Early Seedling Growth
Vickie Murphy, Teodoro Clase, Rosa A. Rodríguez‐Peña, Francisco Jiménez‐Rodríguez (2016) · HortTechnology
Pseudophoenix sargentii in Dominica
Arlington James, Undang Ahmad Dasuki (2003)

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