Species
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Melicoccus bijugatus Jacq.

Genip, Ginep Tree, Guinep, Honigbeere

Climate known 78 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

Melicoccus bijugatus is a fruit-bearing tree in the soapberry family Sapindaceae, native or naturalized across the New World tropics including South and Central America, and parts of the Caribbean. Its stone-bearing fruits, commonly called quenepa, kenèp or guinep, are edible. Other names for the fruits include limoncillo, Bajan ackee, chenet, Spanish lime, mamoncillo, and quenette.

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

About the genus · Melicoccus

Melicoccus is a genus of ten species of flowering plants in the family Sapindaceae, native to tropical regions of northern and western South America.

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

Family
Sapindaceae
Described by
Jacq.
Native to
Venezuela, Colombia
Wild records
687 in range· 432 open

At a glance

Warmest month
31°C
Mar, mean day; nights 24 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
1538mm/yr
11 wet months · peak Oct 219 mm (CHELSA)
Light
29–36DLI
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 sharp rainy season, April to May and August to November at the habitat (not shifted); the temperature curve is flat (1.0 °C of range), so no growing season is inferred. Habitat rain 1538 mm a year, wettest October at 219 mm, driest January at 21 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 29 to 36 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 21.0 °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 ? bijuga Jacq.; Melicocca bijuga (Jacq.) L.; Melicocca bijuga f. alata Kitan.; Melicocca bijugata; Melicocca carpoodea Juss. and 7 more.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: a sharp rainy season, April to May and August to November at the habitat (not shifted); the temperature curve is flat (1.0 °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 (1077 mm of 1538 mm) falls in April to May and August to November. The temperature curve is flat, 1.0 °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, within 10° of the equator; with no thermal season there 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 1538 mm a year, wettest October at 219 mm, driest January at 21 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1538 mm a year at the habitat, 1077 mm of it April to May and August to November. Wettest month October at 219 mm, driest January at 21 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1010 mm to 2618 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: 29 to 36 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 29 to 36 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 41).

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 21.0 °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 21.0 °C, the absolute minimum 18.2 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 40.6 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 22.3 °C in December (across the envelope cells 17.9 °C to 24.7 °C), warmest day 31.3 °C in March (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 21.0 °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: 61 to 68% 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 29 °C in Nov to 31 °C in Mar; mean night from 22 °C in Dec to 24 °C in Mar. The cold quarter, Nov to Jan, is the three months around the coldest night. 1538 mm of rain a year, most in Oct. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 280 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was 18.2 °C and the 99th-percentile day 40.6 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.15°20°25°30°35°40°45°40.6° 99th-percentile day (undated)18.2° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400mm rainDLI 29–36RH 61–68 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 280 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 °C30 / 25–3331 / 26–3531 / 26–3430 / 26–3229 / 26–3129 / 25–3230 / 26–3230 / 26–3229 / 26–3129 / 25–3029 / 25–3029 / 25–31
Night °C22 / 18–2523 / 18–2524 / 18–2524 / 19–2524 / 19–2523 / 18–2623 / 18–2523 / 18–2623 / 18–2523 / 18–2523 / 18–2522 / 18–25
Rain mm21 / 8–9931 / 9–12768 / 14–183153 / 52–279195 / 122–336148 / 66–271128 / 48–265159 / 49–281184 / 103–291219 / 157–330167 / 114–26665 / 42–162
DLI34 / 31–3636 / 32–3836 / 32–4134 / 29–3831 / 27–3632 / 26–3934 / 28–4134 / 31–4133 / 30–3831 / 28–3529 / 27–3231 / 28–33
RH %63 / 53–6761 / 52–6662 / 55–6765 / 59–6967 / 61–7067 / 60–7065 / 57–6966 / 57–7067 / 59–7068 / 61–7168 / 61–7165 / 58–69

Each figure is the median across the 280 grid cells holding the 679 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 1720:2100 (3.975, -74.975). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 18.2 °C, 1st-percentile night 21.0 °C, 99th-percentile day 40.6 °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 280 distinct grid cells holding the 679 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1720:2100 (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 4.00_-75.000, lapse-corrected -395 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 310 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.
NativeVenezuela, Colombia· introduced: Cook Is., Society Is., Tuamotu, Florida, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Bahamas, Cayman Is., Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Leeward Is. AB Ant, Netherlands Antilles, Puerto Rico, Southwest Caribbean, Turks-Caicos Is., Trinidad-Tobago, Venezuelan Antilles, Windward Is., Galápagos
Kew's description“tree” · “wet tropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker6.838, -75.856 · in the densest population, 551 records (80% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 687 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 432 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 103 km away. 414 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 8 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 2° block of the 687 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Melicoccus bijugatusMelicoccus bijugatusMelicoccus bijugatusMelicoccus bijugatusMelicoccus bijugatusMelicoccus bijugatusMelicoccus bijugatusMelicoccus bijugatus

Photographs: (c) Ben Machado, some rights reserved (CC BY); no rights reserved · CC0; (c) Chase Mathey, some rights reserved (CC BY) (4); (c) Scott Allen Davis, some rights reserved (CC BY) (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 Melicoccus bijugatus, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Characterisation of phenolics by LC–UV/Vis, LC–MS/MS and sugars by GC in Melicoccus bijugatus Jacq. ‘Montgomery’ fruits
Laura M. Bystrom, Betty A. Lewis, Dan L. Brown, Eloy Rodrı́guez (2008) · Food Chemistry
An updated infra‐familial classification of Sapindaceae based on targeted enrichment data
Sven Buerki, Martin W. Callmander, Pedro Acevedo‐Rodríguez, Porter P. Lowry (2021) · American Journal of Botany
Huaya (Melicoccus bijugatus) seed flour as a new source of starch: physicochemical, morphological, thermal and functional characterization
Víctor M. Moo‐Huchin, Dulce M. Ac-Chim, Yasser Chim-Chi, Carlos Rolando Ríos‐Soberanis (2020) · Journal of Food Measurement & Characterization
Phytochemical Profile, Toxicity, and Pharmacological Potential of Peels from Four Species of Tropical Fruits
Lilian Dolores Chel-Guerrero, Enrique Sauri‐Duch, Mabel Fragoso‐Serrano, Laura J. Pérez‐Flores (2018) · Journal of Medicinal Food
[Polyphenol content and antioxidant activity of several seeds and nuts].
Fanny C Padilla, Alicia Mariela Rincón, L Bou-Rached (2008) · PubMed
Phenolics, Sugars, Antimicrobial and Free-Radical-Scavenging Activities of Melicoccus bijugatus Jacq. Fruits from the Dominican Republic and Florida
Laura M. Bystrom, Betty A. Lewis, Dan L. Brown, Eloy Rodrı́guez (2009) · Plant Foods for Human Nutrition
Effect of clays incorporation on properties of thermoplastic starch/clay composite bio-based polymer blends
Soledad Cecilia Pech-Cohuo, Mario Adrián de Atocha Dzul-Cervantes, Emilio Pérez‐Pacheco, Jorge André Canto Rosado (2024) · Scientific Reports
Non-native tree regeneration indicates regional and national risks from current invasions
Kevin M. Potter, Kurt H. Riitters, Qinfeng Guo (2022) · Frontiers in Forests and Global Change
In vitro antiviral activity and phytochemical screen in the extracts of peels from four species of tropical fruits collected in Merida Yucatan, Mexico
Lilian Dolores Chel-Guerrero, R G髆ez-Cansino, SL G鷝man-Gutierrez, MG Campos-Lara (2018) · Phyton
Hypotensive and antihypertensive effects of an aqueous extract from Guinep fruit (Melicoccus bijugatus Jacq) in rats
Chukwuemeka R. Nwokocha, Alexia Gordon, Javier Palacios, Adrián Paredes (2020) · Scientific Reports

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.

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (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 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not asked
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; 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 153 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.