Species
+

Calotropis procera (Aiton) W.T.Aiton

Algodón de seda, Apabuoŋ, Apple of Sodom, Bomba

Climate known 61 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

Calotropis procera is a species of flowering plant in the family Apocynaceae that is native to Northern and Tropical Africa, Western Asia, South Asia and Indochina. It typically reaches a height between 6 feet (1.8 m) to 8 feet (2.4 m), and rarely to as high as 15 feet (4.6 m), and grows in sunny to partly-shaded habitats such as disturbed and overgrazed lands, rangeland, roadsides, river flats and coastal dunes. Its green fruits contain a toxic milky sap that is extremely bitter and turns into a latex-like substance, which is resistant to soap.

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

About the genus · Calotropis

Calotropis is a genus of flowering plants in the family Apocynaceae, first described as a genus in 1810. It is native to southern Asia and North Africa.

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

Family
Apocynaceae
Described by
(Aiton) W.T.Aiton
Native to
Algeria, Egypt, Libya +57
Wild records
664 in range· 241 open

At a glance

Warmest month
36°C
Jun, mean day; nights 25 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
211mm/yr
3 wet months · peak Aug 55 mm (CHELSA)
Light
30–47DLI
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: a summer growing season, July to October in the northern hemisphere (July to October at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 211 mm a year, wettest August at 55 mm, driest January at 6 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 30 to 47 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 13.8 °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 Apocynum syriacum Garsault; Apocynum syriacum S.G.Gmel.; Asclepias gigantea Jacq.; Asclepias gigantea Willd.; Asclepias heterophylla Decne. and 14 more.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: a summer growing season, July to October in the northern hemisphere (July to October 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 (151 mm of 211 mm) falls in July to October, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 28.1 °C against a yearly mean of 26.0 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: January 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 211 mm a year, wettest August at 55 mm, driest January at 6 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

211 mm a year at the habitat, 151 mm of it July to October. Wettest month August at 55 mm, driest January at 6 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 79 mm to 1156 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 47 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 30 to 47 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 22, the highest 90th-percentile month 51).

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 13.8 °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 13.8 °C, the absolute minimum 11.6 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 24.8 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 14.8 °C in January (across the envelope cells 7.2 °C to 20.4 °C), warmest day 35.8 °C in June (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 13.8 °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: 46 to 59% 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 25 °C in Jan to 36 °C in Jun; mean night from 15 °C in Jan to 25 °C in Jun. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 211 mm of rain a year, most in Aug. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 491 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was 11.6 °C and the 99th-percentile day 24.8 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.10°20°30°40°50°24.8° 99th-percentile day (undated)11.6° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter050100150200250300mm rainDLI 30–47RH 46–59 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 491 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 °C25 / 18–3227 / 19–3530 / 22–3733 / 25–3935 / 25–4036 / 25–4033 / 25–4032 / 26–4032 / 27–3832 / 27–3629 / 22–3526 / 19–33
Night °C15 / 7–2016 / 9–2119 / 12–2321 / 15–2524 / 17–2725 / 18–2825 / 20–2924 / 20–2924 / 19–2722 / 17–2519 / 13–2316 / 9–22
Rain mm6 / 0–628 / 0–568 / 0–677 / 0–737 / 0–10312 / 0–16050 / 0–25955 / 0–27230 / 0–19516 / 2–786 / 0–526 / 0–66
DLI32 / 24–3936 / 30–4241 / 35–4546 / 37–4847 / 34–5045 / 30–5140 / 26–5038 / 26–4739 / 30–4236 / 31–4132 / 25–4030 / 22–38
RH %50 / 35–5949 / 32–6048 / 31–5946 / 34–6148 / 37–6352 / 36–6657 / 40–6759 / 42–6857 / 40–6752 / 41–6350 / 37–6050 / 36–60

Each figure is the median across the 491 grid cells holding the 646 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 1242:3284 (27.875, -15.775). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 11.6 °C, 1st-percentile night 13.8 °C, 99th-percentile day 24.8 °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 491 distinct grid cells holding the 646 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1242:3284 (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 28.00_-15.625, lapse-corrected +202 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 311 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.
NativeAlgeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Tunisia, Western Sahara, Canary Is., Cape Verde, Benin, Burkina, Gambia, The, Ghana, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Mali, Mauritania, Nigeria, Niger, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Central African Republic, Cameroon, Congo, Gulf of Guinea Is., Zaïre, Chad, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Socotra, Somalia, Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, Iran, Lebanon-Syria, Palestine, Sinai, Gulf States, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Assam, Bangladesh, East Himalaya, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Cambodia, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam· introduced: Northern Provinces, Comoros, Iraq, China South-Central, China Southeast, Northern Territory, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia, Hawaii, California, Florida, Mexico Central, Mexico Southwest, Mexico Southeast, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Aruba, Bahamas, Cayman Is., Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Leeward Is. AB Ant, Netherlands Antilles, Puerto Rico, Turks-Caicos Is., Trinidad-Tobago, Venezuelan Antilles, Windward Is., Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia, Brazil West-Central, Brazil Northeast, Brazil Southeast, Brazil North, Argentina Northeast, Argentina Northwest, Paraguay
Kew's description“shrub or tree” · “desert or dry shrubland”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker10.85, 1.467 · in the densest population, 99 records (15% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 664 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 241 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 2099 km away. 826 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 18 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 inside the densest 4° block of the 664 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Calotropis proceraCalotropis proceraCalotropis proceraCalotropis proceraCalotropis proceraCalotropis proceraCalotropis proceraCalotropis procera

Photographs: (c) hadanie7, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) Saban-Sequén, E.A., some rights reserved (CC BY) (5); (c) pavlaki1968, some rights reserved (CC BY).

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 Calotropis procera, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Biological approach of zinc oxide nanoparticles formation and its characterization
Ravindra Pratap Singh, Vineet Kumar Shukla, Raghvendra Singh Yadav, Prashant K. Sharma (2011) · Advanced Materials Letters
Green synthesis of ZnO nanoparticles by using Calotropis procera leaves for the photodegradation of methyl orange
Vinayak V. Gawade, N. L. Gavade, H. M. Shinde, Santosh B. Babar (2017) · Journal of Materials Science Materials in Electronics
Novel route for rapid biosynthesis of copper nanoparticles using aqueous extract of Calotropis procera L. latex and their cytotoxicity on tumor cells
Shrikant Harne, Ashwinikumar Sharma, Mayur Dhaygude, Shreeram Joglekar (2012) · Colloids and Surfaces B Biointerfaces
Hepatoprotective activity of Calotropis procera flowers against paracetamol-induced hepatic injury in rats
S Ramachandra Setty, Absar Ahmed Quereshi, Agadi Hiremath Viswanatha Swamy, Tushar Patil (2007) · Fitoterapia
Anthelmintic activity of Calotropis procera (Ait.) Ait. F. flowers in sheep
Zafar Iqbal, Muhammad Lateef, Abdul Jabbar, Ghulam Muhammad (2005) · Journal of Ethnopharmacology
On the germination of seeds of Calotropis procera (Ait.) Ait.f
Luiz Gouvêa Labouriau, M.E.B. Viladares (1976) · Anais
Antioxidant and protective effect of latex of Calotropis procera against alloxan-induced diabetes in rats
Sanjeev Roy, Rachna Sehgal, Biswa Mohan Padhy, Vijay L. Kumar (2005) · Journal of Ethnopharmacology
Procerain, a stable cysteine protease from the latex of Calotropis procera
Vikash Kumar Dubey, Medicherla V. Jagannadham (2003) · Phytochemistry
Synthesis of AgNPs using the extract of Calotropis procera flower at room temperature
S. Ananda Babu, H. Gurumallesh Prabu (2011) · Materials Letters
Preparation and characterization of cellulose nanocrystal extracted from Calotropis procera biomass
Kaili Song, Xiaoji Zhu, Weiming Zhu, Xiaoyan Li (2019) · Bioresources and Bioprocessing

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 Calotropis 1 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 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)
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 81 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.