27 photographs › At a glance
- Jan
- Feb
- Mar
- Apr
- May, shaded
- Jun, shaded
- Jul, shaded
- Aug, shaded
- Sep, shaded
- Oct, shaded
- Nov, shaded
- Dec
About the genus · Theobroma
Theobroma is a genus of flowering plants in the mallow family, Malvaceae. It was previously classified as a member of Sterculiaceae, which has been incorporated into Malvaceae to make it monophyletic. It contains 41 species of small understory trees native to the tropical forests of Central and South America.
Quoted from Wikipedia, "Theobroma", CC BY-SA 4.0.
Cultivation
Seasons
The rain rule reads a sharp season: 70% of the median year's rain (3,274 mm of 4,536 mm) falls in May to November. The temperature curve is flat, 0.9 °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. The temperature curve moves under 4 °C between the warmest and coldest month, where the shift rule does not apply, so they are not shifted for a collection elsewhere.
Rain
4,536 mm in the median year at the habitat, 3,274 mm of it May to November. Wettest month August at 515 mm, driest month February at 191 mm. Across the grid cells of the range the year's total runs 3,855 mm to 7,515 mm, the 10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year. The median of the cells' own yearly totals, 4,258 mm, is the year's rain at the top of the page; the 4,536 mm here is the median year's, the twelve monthly medians added, which the rain rule reads. Habitat calendar, northern hemisphere; median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA.
Light
Open sky over the habitat: 24 to 37 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 17, the highest 90th-percentile month 38).
Warmth and air
Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at a typical spot in the range is 20.4 °C, the absolute minimum 18.0 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 32.9 °C. Monthly means: the coldest month's mean nightly low 21.9 °C in January and November (across the grid cells of the range 17.7 °C to 23.0 °C), the warmest month's mean daily high 28.0 °C in March (median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). Cold floor: 20.4 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at a typical spot in the range (NASA POWER).
Relative humidity at the habitat: 67 to 74% across the year (monthly means, median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.
How this section is made
Each card states this species' habitat figures with their sources, and what two fixed rules read from them; nothing here says what the plant does, wants or tolerates. The rules · the terms.
Seasons. Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the grid cells of the range: 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 moves 4 °C or more and the habitat lies 10° or more from the equator. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.
Rain. CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the grid cells of the range. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.
Light. 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.
Temperature. NASA POWER daily minima and maxima over 44 years at a typical spot in the range, lapse-corrected -604 m to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the grid cells of the range. The cold floor is the 1st-percentile night named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.
Humidity. CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the grid cells of the range.
Climate across the habitat
Habitat months, northern hemisphere
Mean daily high from 27 °C in Jan, Feb, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov and Dec to 28 °C in Mar, Apr and May; mean nightly low from 22 °C in Jan, Feb, Mar, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep, Oct, Nov and Dec to 23 °C in Apr and May. The cold quarter, Sep to Nov, is the three months around the coldest month's mean nightly low, centred on the 10 months in a row that tie for it. 4,536 mm of rain in the median year (the twelve monthly medians added), the wettest month Aug. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 11 habitat cells. Over 44 years at a typical spot in the range (NASA POWER) the absolute minimum was 18.0 °C and the 99th-percentile day 32.9 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.
Figures by month
| Figure | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Day °C | 27 / 24–29 | 27 / 25–29 | 28 / 27–30 | 28 / 27–29 | 28 / 27–29 | 27 / 25–28 | 27 / 25–28 | 27 / 25–28 | 27 / 25–28 | 27 / 25–28 | 27 / 24–27 | 27 / 24–28 |
| Night °C | 22 / 18–23 | 22 / 18–23 | 22 / 18–24 | 23 / 19–24 | 23 / 20–25 | 22 / 20–25 | 22 / 20–24 | 22 / 20–24 | 22 / 20–24 | 22 / 19–24 | 22 / 19–24 | 22 / 18–24 |
| Rain mm | 268 / 98–571 | 191 / 77–460 | 192 / 121–494 | 275 / 160–623 | 447 / 348–671 | 441 / 323–642 | 455 / 395–677 | 515 / 385–745 | 490 / 328–670 | 475 / 377–686 | 451 / 371–666 | 336 / 190–640 |
| DLI | 29 / 20–34 | 33 / 23–36 | 37 / 24–38 | 36 / 22–37 | 29 / 20–32 | 26 / 17–31 | 26 / 18–32 | 26 / 19–32 | 26 / 19–31 | 24 / 19–28 | 24 / 18–25 | 26 / 18–29 |
| RH % | 69 / 63–75 | 67 / 62–74 | 68 / 63–74 | 67 / 64–76 | 72 / 67–77 | 73 / 68–78 | 73 / 67–78 | 73 / 67–77 | 73 / 67–78 | 74 / 67–78 | 74 / 67–78 | 72 / 65–76 |
How this section is made
Natural habitat
How this section is made
Photographs
Photographs: (c) Lena Struwe, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) (6).
Related
Similar habitat climate The 6 nearest by mean daily high, mean nightly low and rain, month by month. How.
Spathiphyllum friedrichsthalii Araceae Photo: CC BY, Alexis López Hernández
Asterogyne martiana Arecaceae Photo: CC0, author not stated
Anthurium acutangulum Araceae Photo: CC BY-SA, Lena Struwe
Heliconia imbricata Red giant heliconia Photo: CC BY, River Ahlquist
Peperomia pernambucensis Piperaceae Photo: CC BY, Anders Hastings
Rhodospatha moritziana Araceae Photo: CC BY, Zac PetersonOther Theobroma 11 in the reference
Theobroma angustifolium Theobroma Photo: CC BY, Alexis López Hernández Theobroma asperum Malvaceae Theobroma balaense Malvaceae 
Theobroma bicolor Macambo tree Photo: CC0, author not stated
Theobroma cacao Cacao Photo: CC BY, Ashwin A
Theobroma glaucum Malvaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, T.croat
Theobroma grandiflorum Cupuaçu Photo: CC BY, Srinivasan Kasinathan Theobroma mariae Malvaceae Theobroma purpureum Malvaceae 
Theobroma speciosum Malvaceae Photo: CC0, author not stated Theobroma umbraticum Malvaceae Names & registers
Also known as Theobroma chocoense; Theobroma chocoense var. bullatum; Theobroma stipulatum. (GBIF Backbone)
The record
Every figure here is derived from public data by a stated rule and names its source; nothing about this species is written for its page by a person or by AI, apart from the marked, credited quotations. How →
Where this page came from built 2026-10-22
gbif.species answeredasked 2026-10-22gbif.synonyms answeredasked 2026-10-22gbif.vernacular answeredasked 2026-10-22names fetched 2026-10-22wcvp.distribution answeredas of 2026-06-04gbif.occurrences answeredas of 2026-10-21GBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.hbdw64, of 2026-10-21climate answeredasked 2026-10-22climate.extremes answeredasked 2026-10-22NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 5.50_-76.250, lapse-corrected -604 m at 6.5 °C/kmwikidata answeredasked 2026-10-22IPNI and POWO linked by Kew's number for Theobroma simiarum Donn.Sm. (the item's: IPNI 252470-2, POWO 825610-1)wikipedia nothing to reportasked 2026-10-22inat.photos.wild answeredasked 2026-10-22from iNaturalist's open data of 2026-09-27: research-grade observations with an open-licence photograph, the 24 whose photographs iNaturalist received last (the open data holds no votes); filled 2026-10-22inat.photos.cultivated not askedgbif.media answeredasked 2026-10-22none of the photographs on this page is credited to GBIF: those shown are other sources', and GBIF's were the same photographs or were set aside by the photograph rulesopenalex not askednot yet asked for this reference; a later fill takes the papers from OpenAlex's snapshotEvery source is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, refused, failed, not been asked, or answered twice where one answer is taken (“not taken: two items answered”), and, for a source asked when this page was built, when: the figures are as the source held them that day; a source read from a file (Kew's World Checklist, a GBIF download) says "as of" the file's day instead; a row carried from an earlier build of the page names that build instead. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 17 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.