Ardisia compressaKunth

WFO wfo-0000544087 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Ardisia compressa, photographed by alejandrozab
fig. a alejandrozab, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-04-17 / obs. 122385232
Ardisia compressa, photographed by Arthur de Jesús Chavarría Pérez
fig. b Arthur de Jesús Chavarría Pérez, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 99220860
Ardisia compressa, photographed by Oscar Marín
fig. c Oscar Marín, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 29197481
Ardisia compressa, photographed by Oscar Marín
fig. d Oscar Marín, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 28625065
Ardisia compressa, photographed by Lena Struwe
fig. e Lena Struwe, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 3809286
Ardisia compressa, photographed by Jonathan Rodriguez
fig. f Jonathan Rodriguez, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 110779408
Ardisia compressa, photographed by Obed Palagot Echavarria
fig. g Obed Palagot Echavarria, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 37239592
Ardisia compressa, photographed by Jake Rehage
fig. h Jake Rehage, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 170274713

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
Smithsonian, US National Herbarium
Accession
US 2515114
Filed as
Ardisia compressa Kunth
Det. by
Steyermark, Julian A., (VEN)
Collected
J. Steyermark 1961-01-21
Origin
VE
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC0 1.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 18 botanical countries

Regions where Ardisia compressa is native: Mexico Central, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southeast, Mexico Southwest, Belize, Central American Pacific Is., Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panamá, Trinidad-Tobago, Venezuela Mexico CentralMexico GulfMexico NortheastMexico NorthwestMexico SoutheastMexico SouthwestBelizeCentral American Pacific Is.ColombiaCosta RicaEcuadorEl SalvadorGuatemalaHondurasNicaraguaPanamáTrinidad-TobagoVenezuela
Native distribution of Ardisia compressa, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Belize BLZ SOUTHERN AMERICA
Central American Pacific Is. CPI
Colombia CLM
Costa Rica COS
Ecuador ECU
El Salvador ELS
Guatemala GUA
Honduras HON
Nicaragua NIC
Panamá PAN
Trinidad-Tobago TRT
Venezuela VEN
Mexico Central MXC NORTHERN AMERICA
Mexico Gulf MXG
Mexico Northeast MXE
Mexico Northwest MXN
Mexico Southeast MXT
Mexico Southwest MXS

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Where it actually grows measured, from 115 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 7.5 °C 12.6 °C 23.0 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 21.1 °C 27.0 °C 32.3 °C
Annual rainfall 1,193 mm 1,949 mm 3,822 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 15 mm 155 mm 388 mm

It is barely found anywhere that freezes. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 115 research-grade observations of Ardisia compressa that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 46 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Ardisia alstonii Lundell
  • Ardisia aurantiaca Lundell
  • Ardisia belizensis Lundell
  • Ardisia capollina Moc. & Sessé ex A.DC.
  • Ardisia caudatifolia Lundell
  • Ardisia chahalana Lundell
  • Ardisia cuspidata Benth.
  • Ardisia digitata Lundell
  • Ardisia edwardsii Lundell
  • Ardisia furfuracella subsp. veraguasensis (Lundell) Pipoly & Ricketson
  • Ardisia irazuensis Oerst.
  • Ardisia ixcanensis (Lundell) Pipoly & Ricketson
  • Ardisia nicaraguensis Oerst.
  • Ardisia oerstediana Lundell
  • Ardisia polytoca A.Braun & Bouché
  • Ardisia reflexiflora Lundell
  • Ardisia salvadorensis Lundell
  • Ardisia samalana (Lundell) Pipoly & Ricketson
  • Ardisia veraguasensis Lundell
  • Ardisia whitei Lundell
  • Auriculardisia bawae (Lundell) Lundell
  • Icacorea alstonii (Lundell) Lundell
  • Icacorea aurantiaca (Lundell) Lundell
  • Icacorea belizensis (Lundell) Lundell

and 22 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.