Species
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Agave chiapensis Jacobi

Asparagaceae

Climate known 29 photographs Cactus or succulent
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

Agave chiapensis is a species of Agave native to the Mexican states of Chiapas and Oaxaca. It has also been reported from Costa Rica and Guatemala. Populations of this species are relatively small and isolated, and are threatened by urban and agricultural expansion, particularly in Chiapas.

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

About the genus · Agave

Agave is a genus of monocots native to the arid regions of the Americas. The genus is primarily known for its succulent and xerophytic species that typically form large rosettes of strong, fleshy leaves.

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

Family
Asparagaceae
Described by
Jacobi
Native to
Mexico Southwest, Mexico Southeast, Guatemala
Wild records
101 in range· 37 open

At a glance

Warmest month
24°C
Apr, mean day; nights 11 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
1703mm/yr
9 wet months · peak Jun 343 mm (CHELSA)
Light
30–43DLI
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 cactus or succulent by the genus Agave, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a sharp rainy season, May to September at the habitat (not shifted); the temperature curve is flat (3.9 °C of range), so no growing season is inferred. Habitat rain 1703 mm a year, wettest June at 343 mm, driest January at 16 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 30 to 43 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 3.0 °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 Agave teopiscana Matuda.

Cultivation

Grouped as a cactus or succulent by the genus Agave, 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: a sharp rainy season, May to September at the habitat (not shifted); the temperature curve is flat (3.9 °C of range), so no growing season is inferred.

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

The rain rule reads a sharp season: 70% of the year's rain (1357 mm of 1703 mm) falls in May to September. The temperature curve is flat, 3.9 °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; with a flat temperature curve there is no season to reverse, so they are not shifted for a collection elsewhere.

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 1703 mm a year, wettest June at 343 mm, driest January at 16 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1703 mm a year at the habitat, 1357 mm of it May to September. Wettest month June at 343 mm, driest January at 16 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1508 mm to 2327 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: 30 to 43 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 30 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 26, 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 3.0 °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 3.0 °C, the absolute minimum -0.4 °C, 2 frost nights in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 29.9 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 8.3 °C in January (across the envelope cells 6.0 °C to 13.8 °C), warmest day 23.7 °C in April (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 3.0 °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 69% 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 19 °C in Nov to 24 °C in Apr; mean night from 8 °C in Jan to 13 °C in Jun. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 1703 mm of rain a year, most in Jun. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 33 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -0.4 °C and the 99th-percentile day 29.9 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-10°10°20°30°40°frost29.9° 99th-percentile day (undated)-0.4° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400mm rainDLI 30–43RH 56–69 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 33 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 °C19 / 17–2420 / 19–2523 / 20–2724 / 21–2823 / 20–2721 / 18–2520 / 18–2620 / 18–2619 / 18–2519 / 17–2419 / 17–2419 / 17–24
Night °C8 / 6–149 / 7–1410 / 8–1511 / 9–1712 / 10–1813 / 11–1812 / 10–1812 / 10–1812 / 10–1811 / 9–1710 / 8–159 / 7–14
Rain mm16 / 8–6319 / 15–6024 / 15–5654 / 34–77172 / 124–196343 / 275–380230 / 197–352280 / 242–332332 / 291–377153 / 136–22151 / 32–11329 / 17–88
DLI32 / 28–3536 / 33–3942 / 39–4343 / 42–4439 / 39–4133 / 31–3435 / 34–3835 / 34–3830 / 29–3330 / 29–3330 / 28–3330 / 26–33
RH %59 / 57–6757 / 55–6456 / 54–6159 / 56–6163 / 61–6468 / 66–7065 / 62–7066 / 63–7069 / 67–7267 / 64–7163 / 60–6960 / 58–68

Each figure is the median across the 33 grid cells holding the 99 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 1468:1750 (16.575, -92.475). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -0.4 °C, 1st-percentile night 3.0 °C, 99th-percentile day 29.9 °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 33 distinct grid cells holding the 99 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1468:1750 (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 16.50_-92.500, lapse-corrected +641 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 2108 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.
NativeMexico Southwest, Mexico Southeast, Guatemala
Kew's description“succulent perennial” · “seasonally dry tropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker16.683, -92.603 · in the densest population, 89 records (88% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 101 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 37 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 2 km away. 1 record outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 2 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 101 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Agave chiapensisAgave chiapensisAgave chiapensisAgave chiapensisAgave chiapensisAgave chiapensisAgave chiapensisAgave chiapensis

Photographs: (c) Neptalí Ramírez Marcial, some rights reserved (CC BY) (8).

Photographs: iNaturalist and Wikimedia Commons 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 Agave chiapensis, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

El endemismo en las Liliopsida mexicanas
Adolfo Espejo‐Serna (2017) · Acta Botanica Mexicana
Phylogeny, Diversification Rate, and Divergence Time of Agave sensu lato (Asparagaceae), a Group of Recent Origin in the Process of Diversification
Ofelia Jiménez-Barrón, Ricardo García-Sandoval, Susana Magallón, Abisaí García-Mendoza (2020) · Frontiers in Plant Science
Conservación in situ y ex situ de las agaváceas y nolináceas mexicanas
Irma Sonia Franco-Martínez (1995) · Botanical Sciences
KURAKÇIL PEYZAJ TASARIMININ YEDİ BASAMAĞI: ARİZONA EYALET ÜNİVERSİTESİ KAMPÜSÜ
Müge Ünal (2022) · ArtGRID - Journal of Architecture Engineering and Fine Arts
Importancia de la conservación de especies de plantas: Creación del banco de germoplasma en la Universidad Autónoma de Aguascalientes, México
Lucia Isabel Chavez-Ortiz, Eugenio Pérez Molphe Balch, Laura María de Lourdes De la Rosa-Carrillo (2024) · Biognosis .
A New Agave (Asparagaceae, Agavoideae) from Central Oaxaca, Mexico1,2,3
Greg Starr, Tristan J. Davis, Gonzalo Juárez García (2022) · Cactus and Succulent Journal
Catálogo de ejemplares tipo del Herbario CODAGEM (México)
Santa Lucía Quintero-Bastida, Aurelio Domínguez López, José Antonio López-Sandoval (2021) · Polibotánica
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility

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 Agave 252 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); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive)
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); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried 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 2026-09-20; 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 16 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.