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Varronia curassavica; photograph (c) Nicolas Olejnik, some rights reserved (CC BY) CC BY(c) Nicolas Olejnik, some rights reserved (CC BY) · observed growing wild · 2026-08-07

Varronia curassavica Jacq.

Black sage; Wild sage

Cordiaceae · India, Mexico Central +41

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Varronia curassavica, photograph (c) Nicolas Olejnik, some rights reserved (CC BY)Varronia curassavica, photograph (c) Nicolas Olejnik, some rights reserved (CC BY)Varronia curassavica, photograph (c) Oscar Orlando Vazquez Piña, some rights reserved (CC BY)Varronia curassavica, photograph (c) Oscar Orlando Vazquez Piña, some rights reserved (CC BY)Varronia curassavica, photograph (c) Oscar Orlando Vazquez Piña, some rights reserved (CC BY)Varronia curassavica, photograph (c) Alexis López Hernández, some rights reserved (CC BY) 103 photographs ›
Habitat figures
Cold floor (1 night in 100)
12.6°C
Record low 6.5 °C in 44 years, at a typical spot in the range NASA POWER
Warmest month, mean daily high
29°C
Apr, May, Jun, Jul, Aug and Sep at the habitat CHELSA
Rain a year (median across the range)
995mm
7 months of 25 mm or more in the median year CHELSA
Open-sky light
29–44DLI
Lowest to highest month (DLI) CHELSA
The year in your months, northern hemisphere
  1. Jan
  2. Feb
  3. Mar
  4. Apr
  5. May
  6. Jun
  7. Jul
  8. Aug
  9. Sep
  10. Oct
  11. Nov
  12. Dec
Wet summers: the rain comes June to October, read as a summer growing season. rain rule, CHELSA
Northern hemisphere unless you set your site. The chart is in the habitat's months.

Summary

Varronia curassavica, synonym Cordia curassavica, commonly known as black sage or wild sage, is a species of flowering plant in the family Cordiaceae. It is sometimes called tropical black sage to distinguish it from another unrelated species named black sage, Salvia mellifera. It is native to tropical America but has also been widely introduced to Southeast Asia and the tropical Pacific region, where it is an invasive weed. The specific epithet is a Latinised form of Curaçao, an island in the southern Caribbean Sea region and the locality of the type collection.

Quoted from Wikipedia, "Varronia curassavica", CC BY-SA 4.0.

Cultivation

Seasons

The rain rule reads a summer growing season: 70% of the median year's rain (714 mm of 897 mm) falls in June to October, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 26.0 °C against a yearly mean of 24.7 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: December to April.

Rain

897 mm in the median year at the habitat, 714 mm of it June to October. Wettest month September at 168 mm, driest month March at 11 mm. Across the grid cells of the range the year's total runs 382 mm to 2,171 mm, the 10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year. The median of the cells' own yearly totals, 995 mm, is the year's rain at the top of the page; the 897 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: 29 to 44 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 24, the highest 90th-percentile month 51).

Warmth and air
Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at a typical spot in the range is 12.6 °C, the absolute minimum 6.5 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 38.3 °C. Monthly means: the coldest month's mean nightly low 17.1 °C in January (across the grid cells of the range 9.6 °C to 23.7 °C), the warmest month's mean daily high 29.4 °C in April and May (median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). Cold floor: 12.6 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at a typical spot in the range (NASA POWER).

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 57 to 65% 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 -258 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

Habitat climate of Varronia curassavica through the yearWarmest months April, May, June, July, August and September, mean daily high 29 °C; coldest month January, mean nightly low 17.1 °C; 897 mm of rain in the median year (the twelve monthly medians added). Medians across the range, from CHELSA; the extremes at the edge from NASA POWER. Habitat months, northern hemisphere.0°10°20°30°40°38.3° 99th-percentile day, NASA POWER6.5° lowest night in 44 years, NASA POWER°C · day and nightcold quarter050100150200250300mm rainDLI 29–44RH 57–65%JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain medians and 10th–90th percentile across 403 habitat cells, CHELSA cold quarter: the three months around the coldest month's mean nightly low extremes over 44 years at a typical spot in the range, from NASA POWER, marked at the edge, in no month DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C26 / 21–3027 / 22–3128 / 23–3329 / 25–3429 / 25–3429 / 24–3329 / 23–3329 / 24–3329 / 23–3228 / 23–3127 / 22–3027 / 21–29
Night °C17 / 10–2417 / 10–2418 / 11–2419 / 13–2521 / 14–2622 / 15–2622 / 14–2623 / 14–2623 / 14–2621 / 13–2520 / 11–2518 / 10–24
Rain mm23 / 5–9312 / 6–10411 / 3–14123 / 1–19964 / 1–228158 / 2–278151 / 34–240150 / 48–253168 / 55–27487 / 32–22029 / 9–15721 / 4–140
DLI31 / 25–3436 / 30–3942 / 34–4544 / 32–4842 / 30–5137 / 30–5039 / 33–4538 / 34–4234 / 31–4034 / 29–3731 / 26–3429 / 24–33
RH %59 / 50–6758 / 48–6557 / 47–6657 / 46–6759 / 49–6963 / 54–6963 / 55–6864 / 57–6865 / 59–6963 / 55–6861 / 52–6860 / 51–68

Records on both sides of the equator: the 101 cells at least 10° south of it have seasons six months apart and are left out, not combined into a year no place has. These figures are across the 403 cells that remain: the 343 at least 10° north and the 60 within 10° of the equator, which stay in either way.

How this section is made
Each figure is the median across the 403 grid cells on land that hold in-range records (598 records in those cells; 15 more cells hold records but no land by the elevation layer, so those records sit at sea and the cells are left out), with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. A dash is a month one or more of those cells has no figure for in the grid (a variable CHELSA does not carry there), so no median is taken rather than one over fewer cells. Extremes and elevation were read at a typical spot in the range, cell 1473:1690 (16.325, -95.475). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 6.5 °C, 1st-percentile night 12.6 °C, 99th-percentile day 38.3 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Across the range: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 403 distinct grid cells holding 598 of the 738 in-range records (15 further cells with records at sea, by the elevation layer, left out) on the northern side of the equator (343 cells poleward of 10° north, 101 poleward of 10° south: the two sides' seasons are not combined, and cells within 10° of the equator stay in); extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1473:1690 (its coldest month's mean nightly low nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 16.50_-95.625, lapse-corrected -258 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 483 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 the cells of the in-range records placed well enough to read one, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeIndia, Mexico Central, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Gulf, Mexican Pacific Is., Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southwest, Mexico Southeast, Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Aruba, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Leeward Is. AB Ant, Netherlands Antilles, Puerto Rico, 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 Northeast, Argentina Northwest, Paraguay, Uruguay · introduced: Mauritius, Madagascar, Sri Lanka, Borneo, Malaya, Christmas I., Florida, Galápagos · regions are the level-3 units of the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions, as Kew's World Checklist records ranges, some under historical names such as Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia (how).
Map marker18.251, -97.495 · in the densest population, 362 records (22% of those in range)
Kew's description“shrub” · “seasonally dry tropical” · quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Evidence usedThe map marker rests on all 1618 georeferenced records inside the native range; the climate across the range on the 598 of them in the land cells it reads, of 738 placed to within 10 km; the map shows only the 1320 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 140 km away. 9 records outside the WCVP native range not used. 880 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km, or with no stated accuracy (admitted only as a person's observation to three decimals), and stay on the map but off the climate.
How this section is made
The map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population inside the densest 4° block of the 1618 in-range records; it decides nothing. Records outside the native range, living specimens and records marked introduced are not used; which records count.

Photographs

Varronia curassavica, photograph 1did not loadVarronia curassavica, photograph 2did not loadVarronia curassavica, photograph 3did not loadVarronia curassavica, photograph 4did not loadVarronia curassavica, photograph 5did not loadVarronia curassavica, photograph 6did not load

Photographs: (c) Nicolas Olejnik, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) Oscar Orlando Vazquez Piña, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3); (c) Alexis López Hernández, some rights reserved (CC BY).

Similar habitat climate The 6 nearest by mean daily high, mean nightly low and rain, month by month. How.

Plumeria rubra Plumeria rubra Frangipani Photo: CC BY, Carlos Domínguez-RodríguezIpomoea triloba Ipomoea triloba Little-bell Photo: CC BY, 祐Ficus crocata Ficus crocata Moraceae Photo: CC BY, nasuaMacroptilium atropurpureum Macroptilium atropurpureum Purple bushbean Photo: CC BY, 祐Pithecellobium dulce Pithecellobium dulce Monkeypod Photo: CC BY, Jacky JudasPassiflora filipes Passiflora filipes Slender passionflower Photo: CC BY, Raúl A. Ruiz M.

Other Varronia 6 in the reference

Varronia bullata Varronia bullata Cordiaceae Photo: CC BY, Dayron BretoVarronia cylindristachya Varronia cylindristachya Cordiaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, julianazuluaga-carreroVarronia dichotoma Varronia dichotoma Cordiaceae Photo: CC BY, Andrea GantzerVarronia globosa Varronia globosa Boraginaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, Krzysztof Ziarnek, KenraizVarronia polycephala Varronia polycephala Black-sage Photo: CC BY, Guillaume Delaitre Varronia wagnerorum Luquillo Mountain manjack

Names & registers

Also known as Cordia angustifolia; Cordia barbata; Cordia brevispicata; Cordia brevispicata var. hypomalaca; Cordia canescens and 87 more. (GBIF Backbone)

GBIFPOWOIPNIWFOWikidataWikipediaiNaturalist

The record

Family
Cordiaceae
Described by
Jacq.
Native to
India, Mexico Central, Mexico Northeast +40
Wild records
1618 in range · 1320 open

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 record gbif.species answeredasked 2026-10-22
GBIF synonyms gbif.synonyms answeredasked 2026-10-22
GBIF common names gbif.vernacular answeredasked 2026-10-22names fetched 2026-10-22
WCVP native range wcvp.distribution answeredas of 2026-06-04
GBIF occurrence records gbif.occurrences answeredas of 2026-10-21GBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.hbdw64, of 2026-10-21; 15 records within 1 km of a botanic garden, herbarium or zoo left out (12 at a botanic garden or arboretum, 1 at a herbarium, 2 at a zoo; Wikidata's list)
Habitat climate climate answeredasked 2026-10-22
Daily extremes (NASA POWER) climate.extremes answeredasked 2026-10-22NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 16.50_-95.625, lapse-corrected -258 m at 6.5 °C/km
Wikidata wikidata answeredasked 2026-10-22
Wikipedia wikipedia answeredasked 2026-10-22
iNaturalist photographs, wild inat.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 2026-10-22
iNaturalist photographs, cultivated inat.photos.cultivated not asked
GBIF media gbif.media answeredasked 2026-10-22
OpenAlex papers openalex not askednot yet asked for this reference; a later fill takes the papers from OpenAlex's snapshot

Every 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 206 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.

Cultifolio

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