Species
+

Vitex lucens Kirk

Lamiaceae

Climate known 56 photographs
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

Vitex lucens, commonly known as pūriri, is an evergreen tree endemic to New Zealand.

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

About the genus · Vitex

Vitex is a genus of flowering plants in the family Lamiaceae containing about 210 species. Common names include chaste tree or chastetree, traditionally referring to V. agnus-castus, but often applied to other species, as well, and pūriri for the New Zealand species V. lucens. Species of Vitex are native throughout the tropics and subtropics, with a few species in warm-temperate Eurasia and one in New Zealand.

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

Family
Lamiaceae
Described by
Kirk
Native to
New Zealand North
Wild records
1652 in range· 491 open

At a glance

Warmest month
22°C
Feb, mean day; nights 17 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
1435mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Jul 167 mm (CHELSA)
Light
13–43DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (September to April in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 1435 mm a year, wettest July at 167 mm, driest January at 91 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 13 to 43 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 8.3 °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 Ephialis pentaphylla Banks & Sol.; Ephialis pentaphylla Banks & Sol. ex A.Cunn.; Vitex glabrata F.Muell.; Vitex littoralis A.Cunn.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (September to April 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 (1048 mm of 1435 mm) takes 8 months, March to October. Mean temperature moves 8.0 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, southern hemisphere; shifted six months for a northern-hemisphere collection: September 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 1435 mm a year, wettest July at 167 mm, driest January at 91 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1435 mm a year at the habitat, 1048 mm of it March to October. Wettest month July at 167 mm, driest January at 91 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1192 mm to 1931 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, southern 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: 13 to 43 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 13 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 11, the highest 90th-percentile month 45).

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 8.3 °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 8.3 °C, the absolute minimum 5.2 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 21.6 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 9.1 °C in August (across the envelope cells 6.3 °C to 11.1 °C), warmest day 21.5 °C in February (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 8.3 °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: 62 to 63% 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 13 °C in Jul to 22 °C in Feb; mean night from 9 °C in Aug to 17 °C in Feb. The cold quarter, Jul to Sep, is the three months around the coldest night. 1435 mm of rain a year, most in Jul. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 536 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was 5.2 °C and the 99th-percentile day 21.6 °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°21.6° 99th-percentile day (undated)5.2° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter050100150200250mm rainDLI 13–43RH 62–63 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 536 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 °C21 / 19–2222 / 20–2320 / 19–2118 / 16–1916 / 14–1714 / 12–1513 / 11–1414 / 12–1415 / 13–1616 / 14–1718 / 16–1920 / 18–21
Night °C16 / 14–1817 / 15–1816 / 13–1714 / 11–1612 / 9–1410 / 7–129 / 6–119 / 6–1110 / 8–1211 / 9–1313 / 11–1415 / 13–16
Rain mm91 / 72–12292 / 73–129104 / 83–145112 / 91–166132 / 112–173154 / 127–205167 / 141–217147 / 120–194124 / 101–164108 / 91–163100 / 81–142104 / 90–158
DLI43 / 41–4537 / 35–3930 / 29–3122 / 21–2316 / 14–1713 / 11–1414 / 12–1519 / 18–2026 / 24–2734 / 32–3540 / 37–4242 / 40–45
RH %62 / 60–6562 / 60–6562 / 60–6462 / 60–6563 / 61–6663 / 61–6663 / 61–6663 / 61–6563 / 61–6662 / 61–6562 / 61–6463 / 61–65

Each figure is the median across the 536 grid cells holding the 1618 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 2581:7080 (-39.075, 174.025). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 5.2 °C, 1st-percentile night 8.3 °C, 99th-percentile day 21.6 °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 536 distinct grid cells holding the 1618 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 2581:7080 (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 -39.00_173.750, lapse-corrected -2 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 40 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.
NativeNew Zealand North
Kew's description“tree” · “seasonally dry tropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker-36.793, 174.723 · in the densest population, 1218 records (74% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1652 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 491 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 1 km away. 10 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 34 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 1652 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Vitex lucensVitex lucensVitex lucensVitex lucensVitex lucensVitex lucensVitex lucensVitex lucens

Photographs: (c) Irisa Hudson, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3); (c) ian_mcallan, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Emily Roberts, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) catchwords, some rights reserved (CC BY); no rights reserved · CC0 (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 Vitex lucens, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Effects of kiore ( Rattus exulans Peale) on recruitment of indigenous coastal trees on northern offshore islands of New Zealand
Donald J. Campbell, I. A. E. Atkinson (1999) · Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand
The glycoflavonoid pigments of Vitex lucens wood
Margaret K. Seikel, Juliana H.S. Chow, Linda C. Feldman (1966) · Phytochemistry
Generalist dung attraction response in a New Zealand dung beetle that evolved with an absence of mammalian herbivores
A. G. Jones, Shaun A. Forgie, David J. Scott, Jacqueline R. Beggs (2012) · Ecological Entomology
Consequences of dispersal failure: kereru and large seeds in New Zealand
Debra M. Wotton (2007) · UC Research Repository (University of Canterbury)
The Fruit of Vitex lucens (Verbenaceae)
E. J. Godley (1971) · New Zealand Journal of Botany
The extractives of Vitex lucens—I
Lindsay H. Briggs, R. C. CAMBIE (1958) · Tetrahedron
An avian seed dispersal paradox: New Zealand's extinct megafaunal birds did not disperse large seeds
Joanna K. Carpenter, Jamie R. Wood, Janet M. Wilmshurst, Dave Kelly (2018) · Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences

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 Vitex 4 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (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 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not asked
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; 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 22 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.