Species
+

Parodia maassii (Hesse) A.Berger

Cactaceae

Climate known 24 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 · Parodia

Parodia is a genus of flowering plants in the family Cactaceae, native to the eastern slopes of the Andes in northwestern Argentina and southwestern Bolivia and in the lowland pampas regions of northeastern Argentina, southern Brazil, eastern Paraguay, and Uruguay. This genus has about 65 species, many of which have been transferred from Eriocactus, Notocactus and Wigginsia. They range from small globose plants to 1 m (3 ft) tall columnar cacti. More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Parodia”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Cactaceae
Described by
(Hesse) A.Berger
Native to
Bolivia, Argentina Northwest
Wild records
146 in range· 46 open

At a glance

Warmest month
19°C
Oct, mean day; nights 5 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
739mm/yr
6 wet months · peak Jan 198 mm (CHELSA)
Light
32–48DLI
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 Parodia, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a summer growing season, June to September in the northern hemisphere (December to March at the habitat, southern). Habitat rain 739 mm a year, wettest January at 198 mm, driest June at 2 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 32 to 48 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -4.1 °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 Bolivicactus maassii (Heese) Doweld; Echinocactus escayachensis Vaupel; Echinocactus maassii Heese; Malacocarpus escayachensis (Vaupel) Britton & Rose; Malacocarpus maassii (Heese) Britton & Rose and 32 more.

Cultivation

Grouped as a cactus or succulent by the genus Parodia, 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 (December to March at the habitat, southern).

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 (599 mm of 739 mm) falls in December to March, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 12.0 °C against a yearly mean of 10.3 °C). Months are the habitat's, southern hemisphere; shifted six months for a northern-hemisphere collection: June to September.

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 739 mm a year, wettest January at 198 mm, driest June at 2 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

739 mm a year at the habitat, 599 mm of it December to March. Wettest month January at 198 mm, driest June at 2 mm; 3 months under 5 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 527 mm to 1223 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: 32 to 48 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 32 to 48 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 29, the highest 90th-percentile month 53).

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 -4.1 °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 -4.1 °C, the absolute minimum -8.7 °C, about 95 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 26.5 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -0.9 °C in July (across the envelope cells -3.9 °C to 1.3 °C), warmest day 18.9 °C in October (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -4.1 °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: 37 to 62% 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 14 °C in Jul to 19 °C in Oct; mean night from -1 °C in Jul to 7 °C in Dec. The cold quarter, Jun to Aug, is the three months around the coldest night. 739 mm of rain a year, most in Jan. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 94 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -8.7 °C and the 99th-percentile day 26.5 °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°frost26.5° 99th-percentile day (undated)-8.7° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter050100150200250300mm rainDLI 32–48RH 37–62 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 94 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 °C16 / 14–1816 / 14–1816 / 14–1817 / 14–1916 / 13–1815 / 12–1714 / 12–1716 / 14–1818 / 15–2019 / 16–2119 / 15–2118 / 15–20
Night °C7 / 5–97 / 5–87 / 4–85 / 2–72 / -2–4-0 / -4–2-1 / -4–11 / -3–32 / -1–45 / 2–76 / 4–87 / 5–9
Rain mm198 / 131–291146 / 91–230113 / 79–17823 / 14–434 / 2–122 / 1–72 / 1–67 / 3–1212 / 6–2434 / 22–7056 / 41–112142 / 87–237
DLI44 / 38–4742 / 38–4639 / 35–4337 / 33–4135 / 30–3732 / 29–3434 / 30–3538 / 35–4044 / 40–4747 / 43–5248 / 43–5347 / 40–51
RH %62 / 57–6861 / 57–6860 / 56–6753 / 48–6044 / 38–4937 / 33–4338 / 34–4443 / 38–4847 / 41–5351 / 46–5955 / 50–6258 / 53–66

Each figure is the median across the 94 grid cells holding the 136 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 2198:2287 (-19.925, -65.625). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -8.7 °C, 1st-percentile night -4.1 °C, 99th-percentile day 26.5 °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 94 distinct grid cells holding the 136 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 2198:2287 (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 -20.00_-65.625, lapse-corrected -139 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 3433 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.
NativeBolivia, Argentina Northwest
Kew's description“succulent subshrub” · “montane tropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker-22.14, -65.474 · in the densest population, 113 records (77% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 146 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 46 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 9 km away. 10 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 146 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Parodia maassiiParodia maassiiParodia maassiiParodia maassiiParodia maassiiParodia maassiiParodia maassiiParodia maassii

Photographs: Mateo Tapia, CC0, iNaturalist via GBIF (3); Sebastián Santecchia, CC0, iNaturalist via GBIF (4); Tomás Tamagno, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF.

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

DEVELOPMENTALLY VARIABLE, POLYMORPHIC WOODS IN CACTI
James D. Mauseth, Brandon J. Plemons (1995) · American Journal of Botany
Developmentally Variable, Polymorphic Woods in Cacti
James D. Mauseth, Brandon J. Plemons (1995) · American Journal of Botany
Patrones de distribución espacial de "Parodia maassii" (Heese) A. Berger (Cactaceae) en un semidesierto de los Andes subtropicales, la prepuna
Freddy Ruiz, Ramiro Pablo López, Daniel M. Larrea Alcázar (2009) · Ecología en Bolivia: revista del Instituto de Ecología
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2025) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.Org User (2023) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.Org User (2020) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Parodia maassii: Kiesling, R., Lowry, M. & Ortega-Baes, P.
IUCN (2010) · IUCN Red List of Threatened Species
Parodia maassii: Kiesling, R., Lowry, M. & Ortega-Baes, P.
IUCN (2010) · IUCN Red List of Threatened Species

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 Parodia 68 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (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 nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not asked
inat.photos.wild not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: not asked: 18 wild photographs already from the GBIF download
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: filled 2026-09-20
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 6 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.