Species
+

Agave kerchovei Lem.

Asparagaceae

Climate known 73 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.

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
Lem.
Native to
Mexico Central, Mexico Southwest
Wild records
318 in range· 172 open

At a glance

Warmest month
26°C
Apr, mean day; nights 12 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
687mm/yr
7 wet months · peak Jun 146 mm (CHELSA)
Light
31–46DLI
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 summer growing season, June to September in the northern hemisphere (June to September at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 687 mm a year, wettest June at 146 mm, driest December at 7 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 31 to 46 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 2.0 °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 beaucarnei Lem.; Agave expatriata Rose; Agave inopinabilis Trel.; Agave kerchovei var. beaucarnei (Lem.) Trel.; Agave kerchovei var. macrodontha F.Haage & E.Schmidt and 1 more.

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 summer growing season, June to September in the northern hemisphere (June to September 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 (494 mm of 687 mm) falls in June to September, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 18.0 °C against a yearly mean of 17.0 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: December to March.

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 687 mm a year, wettest June at 146 mm, driest December at 7 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

687 mm a year at the habitat, 494 mm of it June to September. Wettest month June at 146 mm, driest December at 7 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 550 mm to 1145 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: 31 to 46 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 31 to 46 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 27, the highest 90th-percentile month 47).

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 2.0 °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 2.0 °C, the absolute minimum -4.3 °C, 40 frost nights in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 31.8 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 7.7 °C in January (across the envelope cells 5.5 °C to 12.0 °C), warmest day 26.3 °C in April (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 2.0 °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: 53 to 65% 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 21 °C in Jan to 26 °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. 687 mm of rain a year, most in Jun. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 136 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -4.3 °C and the 99th-percentile day 31.8 °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°frost31.8° 99th-percentile day (undated)-4.3° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter050100150200250mm rainDLI 31–46RH 53–65 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 136 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 / 19–2523 / 20–2725 / 22–2926 / 23–3026 / 23–2923 / 20–2722 / 19–2623 / 19–2722 / 19–2622 / 19–2521 / 18–2621 / 18–25
Night °C8 / 6–128 / 6–1310 / 8–1412 / 9–1613 / 11–1713 / 11–1812 / 10–1712 / 10–1713 / 11–1711 / 9–1610 / 8–148 / 6–13
Rain mm8 / 5–1610 / 7–1712 / 8–1725 / 18–3767 / 48–86146 / 118–198114 / 87–197110 / 86–190124 / 99–20551 / 38–9713 / 9–297 / 6–15
DLI32 / 29–3538 / 34–3943 / 41–4546 / 44–4743 / 41–4438 / 34–4039 / 35–4138 / 35–4034 / 30–3633 / 30–3532 / 29–3531 / 27–33
RH %57 / 53–5955 / 52–5853 / 50–5654 / 51–5658 / 55–6163 / 60–6763 / 60–6863 / 60–6865 / 62–7063 / 60–6760 / 57–6358 / 54–61

Each figure is the median across the 136 grid cells holding the 307 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 1430:1644 (18.475, -97.775). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -4.3 °C, 1st-percentile night 2.0 °C, 99th-percentile day 31.8 °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 136 distinct grid cells holding the 307 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1430:1644 (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 18.50_-97.500, lapse-corrected -62 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 2002 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 Central, Mexico Southwest
Kew's description“succulent perennial” · “desert or dry shrubland”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker18.256, -97.453 · in the densest population, 308 records (97% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 318 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 172 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 3 km away. 2 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 11 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 318 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Agave kerchoveiAgave kerchoveiAgave kerchoveiAgave kerchoveiAgave kerchoveiAgave kerchoveiAgave kerchoveiAgave kerchovei

Photographs: (c) Carlos Martorell, 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 kerchovei, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

La vegetación del Valle de Tehuacán-Cuicatlán
Alfonso Valiente‐Banuet, Alejandro Casas, Ariel R. Alcántara, Patricia Dávila (2000) · Botanical Sciences
Pollination Biology and Adaptive Radiation of Agavaceae, with Special Emphasis on the Genus Agave
Martha Rocha, Sara V. Good‐Avila, Fracisco Molina-Freaner, Héctor T. Arita (2006) · Aliso
Advances in the Biosynthesis and Molecular Evolution of Steroidal Saponins in Plants
Yi Li, Huan Yang, Zihao Li, Song Li (2023) · International Journal of Molecular Sciences
Sociocultural and ecological factors influencing management of edible and non-edible plants: the case of Ixcatlán, Mexico
Selene Rangel-Landa, Alejandro Casas, Eduardo Garcı́a-Frapolli, Rafael Lira (2017) · Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine
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
Phylogeography and Genetic Diversity in a Southern North American Desert: Agave kerchovei From the Tehuacán-Cuicatlán Valley, Mexico
Erika Aguirre‐Planter, J. Gilberto Parra-Leyva, Santiago Ramírez‐Barahona, Enrique Scheinvar (2020) · Frontiers in Plant Science
Conserving seeds of useful wild plants in Mexico: main issues and recommendations
Isela Rodríguez-Arévalo, Efisio Mattana, Lilia M. Urdaneta García, Udayangani Liu (2016) · Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution
Ethnobotany of the Mountain Regions of Mexico
Alejandro Casas, José Juan Blancas Vázquez (2023) · Ethnobotany of mountain regions
El complejo Agave victoriae-reginae (Agavaceae)
M. Socorro González‐Elizondo, Martha González‐Elizondo, Irma Lorena López-Enríquez, Lorenzo Reséndiz-Rojas (2011) · Acta Botanica Mexicana
Variación anatómica y morfológica en especies y entre poblaciones de Opuntia en la porción sur del Desierto Chihuahuense
Alejandro Muñoz‐Urias, Guadalupe Palomino-Hasbach, Teresa Terrazas, Armando García-Velázquez (2008) · Botanical Sciences
Aprovechamiento del escapo y los botones florales de Agave kerchovei en el Valle de Tehuacán-Cuicatlán, México
Paulina Brena-Bustamante, Rafael Lira‐Saade, Edmundo Garcı́a-Moya, Angélica Romero-Manzanares (2013) · Botanical Sciences
The Agavoideae: an emergent model clade for CAM evolutionary biology
Karolina Heyduk, Edward V. McAssey, Richard Field, Jim Leebens‐Mack (2023) · Annals of Botany

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 nothing to reportcarried 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 26 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.