Catopsis berteroniana(Schult. & Schult.f.) Mez

powdery strap airplant

WFO wfo-0001218673 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Catopsis berteroniana, photographed by Guillaume Delaitre
fig. a Guillaume Delaitre, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-09-19 / obs. 159095765
Catopsis berteroniana, photographed by Eugenio Padilla
fig. b Eugenio Padilla, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 63327121
Catopsis berteroniana, photographed by Neptalí Ramírez Marcial
fig. c Neptalí Ramírez Marcial, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 1586219
Catopsis berteroniana, photographed by Guillaume Delaitre
fig. d Guillaume Delaitre, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 172529671
Catopsis berteroniana, photographed by Guillaume Delaitre
fig. e Guillaume Delaitre, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 163894966
Catopsis berteroniana, photographed by Neptalí Ramírez Marcial
fig. f Neptalí Ramírez Marcial, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 1671421
Catopsis berteroniana, photographed by J. L. Gómez-Hechavarría
fig. g J. L. Gómez-Hechavarría, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 121817502
Catopsis berteroniana, photographed by Steven Bodzin
fig. h Steven Bodzin, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 30507345

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.

Native range 20 botanical countries

Regions where Catopsis berteroniana is native: Florida, Mexico Southeast, Bahamas, Belize, Brazil Northeast, Brazil South, Brazil Southeast, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Guyana, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Panamá, Suriname, Venezuela FloridaMexico SoutheastBelizeBrazil NortheastBrazil SouthBrazil SoutheastColombiaCosta RicaCubaDominican RepublicEcuadorFrench GuianaGuatemalaGuyanaJamaicaNicaraguaPanamáSurinameVenezuela Bahamas
Native distribution of Catopsis berteroniana, 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. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Bahamas BAH SOUTHERN AMERICA
Belize BLZ
Brazil Northeast BZE
Brazil South BZS
Brazil Southeast BZL
Colombia CLM
Costa Rica COS
Cuba CUB
Dominican Republic DOM
Ecuador ECU
French Guiana FRG
Guatemala GUA
Guyana GUY
Jamaica JAM
Nicaragua NIC
Panamá PAN
Suriname SUR
Venezuela VEN
Florida FLA NORTHERN AMERICA
Mexico Southeast MXT

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 196 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 7.1 °C 17.6 °C 21.1 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 24.8 °C 30.0 °C 32.1 °C
Annual rainfall 1,243 mm 1,496 mm 2,916 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 39 mm 137 mm 285 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 196 research-grade observations of Catopsis berteroniana 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 5 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.

  • Catopsis mosenii Mez
  • Pogospermum berteronianum (Schult. & Schult.f.) Brongn.
  • Renealmia pendula C.F.Gaertn.
  • Tillandsia berteroniana Schult. & Schult.f.
  • Tillandsia pendula Thunb. ex C.F.Gaertn.

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. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. 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.