Cordia nodosaLam.

WFO wfo-0000620784 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Cordia nodosa, photographed by Jens-Christian Svenning
fig. a Jens-Christian Svenning, CC BY 4.0 / 2015-07-14 / obs. 74321153
Cordia nodosa, photographed by Jens-Christian Svenning
fig. b Jens-Christian Svenning, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 73977045
Cordia nodosa, photographed by Guillaume Delaitre
fig. c Guillaume Delaitre, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 177046535
Cordia nodosa, photographed by Guillaume Delaitre
fig. d Guillaume Delaitre, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 177046137
Cordia nodosa, photographed by Guillaume Delaitre
fig. e Guillaume Delaitre, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 172505560
Cordia nodosa, photographed by Guillaume Delaitre
fig. f Guillaume Delaitre, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 169252098
Cordia nodosa, photographed by Círculo de Investigación en Taxonomía, Florística y Ecología Vegetal
fig. g Círculo de Investigación en Taxonomía, Florística y Ecología Vegetal, CC0 1.0 / obs. 162350687
Cordia nodosa, photographed by Círculo de Investigación en Taxonomía, Florística y Ecología Vegetal
fig. h Círculo de Investigación en Taxonomía, Florística y Ecología Vegetal, CC0 1.0 / obs. 162435336

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 13 botanical countries

Regions where Cordia nodosa is native: Bolivia, Brazil North, Brazil Northeast, Brazil Southeast, Brazil West-Central, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname, Venezuela, Venezuelan Antilles BoliviaBrazil NorthBrazil NortheastBrazil SoutheastBrazil West-CentralColombiaEcuadorFrench GuianaGuyanaPeruSurinameVenezuela Venezuelan Antilles
Native distribution of Cordia nodosa, 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
Bolivia BOL SOUTHERN AMERICA
Brazil North BZN
Brazil Northeast BZE
Brazil Southeast BZL
Brazil West-Central BZC
Colombia CLM
Ecuador ECU
French Guiana FRG
Guyana GUY
Peru PER
Suriname SUR
Venezuela VEN
Venezuelan Antilles VNA

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 183 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 18.9 °C 21.4 °C 23.5 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 28.1 °C 30.5 °C 32.6 °C
Annual rainfall 1,606 mm 2,695 mm 4,008 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 92 mm 231 mm 607 mm

It is not found anywhere that gets close to freezing. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 183 research-grade observations of Cordia nodosa 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 15 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.

  • Cordia avicularis Salisb.
  • Cordia collococa Aubl.
  • Cordia formicarum Roem. & Schult.
  • Cordia hirsuta Willd.
  • Cordia hispidissima DC.
  • Cordia miranda DC.
  • Cordia nodosa f. glabrior Fresen.
  • Cordia nodosa var. angustifolia Fresen.
  • Cordia nodosa var. hispidissima Fresen.
  • Cordia umbrosa Spruce
  • Cordia volubilis Pittier
  • Firensia hirsuta Raf.
  • Lithocardium hispidissimum (A.DC.) Kuntze
  • Lithocardium mirandum Kuntze
  • Lithocardium nodosum Kuntze

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.