Croton cortesianusKunth

Cortez's croton

WFO wfo-0000927736 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Croton cortesianus, photographed by Center for Urban Ecology
fig. a Center for Urban Ecology, CC0 1.0 / 2022-05-05 / obs. 195392740
Croton cortesianus, photographed by José Gerardo Velasco
fig. b José Gerardo Velasco, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 193514562
Croton cortesianus, photographed by Center for Urban Ecology
fig. c Center for Urban Ecology, CC0 1.0 / obs. 189479274
Croton cortesianus, photographed by Matt Schultz
fig. d Matt Schultz, CC0 1.0 / obs. 183300722
Croton cortesianus, photographed by Center for Urban Ecology
fig. e Center for Urban Ecology, CC0 1.0 / obs. 180584171
Croton cortesianus, photographed by Center for Urban Ecology
fig. f Center for Urban Ecology, CC0 1.0 / obs. 178911565
Croton cortesianus, photographed by Center for Urban Ecology
fig. g Center for Urban Ecology, CC0 1.0 / obs. 173215955
Croton cortesianus, photographed by Evelyn Lazzaretti 🏳️‍⚧️
fig. h Evelyn Lazzaretti 🏳️‍⚧️, CC0 1.0 / obs. 173010302

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 10 botanical countries

Regions where Croton cortesianus is native: Mexico Central, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southeast, Mexico Southwest, Texas, Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua Mexico CentralMexico GulfMexico NortheastMexico NorthwestMexico SoutheastMexico SouthwestTexasBelizeHondurasNicaragua
Native distribution of Croton cortesianus, 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
Mexico Central MXC NORTHERN AMERICA
Mexico Gulf MXG
Mexico Northeast MXE
Mexico Northwest MXN
Mexico Southeast MXT
Mexico Southwest MXS
Texas TEX
Belize BLZ SOUTHERN AMERICA
Honduras HON
Nicaragua NIC

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.

Flowering 107 in flower of 124 examined

Peak flowering in Jul. Each bar is the share of Croton cortesianus observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 107 of 124 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 2 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 4 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.

  • Croton chichenensis Lundell
  • Croton segoviarum Standl. & L.O.Williams
  • Croton trichocarpus Torr.
  • Oxydectes cortesiana (Kunth) 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. 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.