Hymenaea courbarilL.

stinkingtoe

WFO wfo-0000168642 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Hymenaea courbaril, photographed by Natalie Waddell-Rutter
fig. a Natalie Waddell-Rutter, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-03-08 / obs. 183390189

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
The New York Botanical Garden
Accession
00979292
Filed as
Hymenaea courbaril L.
Det. by
J. W. Grimes 1997-01-01
Collected
W. W. Thomas 1985-11-02
Origin
BR
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

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 34 botanical countries

Regions where Hymenaea courbaril is native: Mexico Central, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southeast, Mexico Southwest, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil North, Brazil Northeast, Brazil South, Brazil Southeast, Brazil West-Central, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Leeward Is., Nicaragua, Panamá, Paraguay, Peru, Puerto Rico, Suriname, Trinidad-Tobago, Venezuela, Venezuelan Antilles, Windward Is. Mexico CentralMexico GulfMexico NorthwestMexico SoutheastMexico SouthwestBelizeBoliviaBrazil NorthBrazil NortheastBrazil SouthBrazil SoutheastBrazil West-CentralColombiaCosta RicaCubaDominican RepublicEl SalvadorFrench GuianaGuatemalaGuyanaHaitiHondurasJamaicaNicaraguaPanamáParaguayPeruPuerto RicoSurinameTrinidad-TobagoVenezuela Leeward Is.Venezuelan AntillesWindward Is.
Native distribution of Hymenaea courbaril, 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
Belize BLZ SOUTHERN AMERICA
Bolivia BOL
Brazil North BZN
Brazil Northeast BZE
Brazil South BZS
Brazil Southeast BZL
Brazil West-Central BZC
Colombia CLM
Costa Rica COS
Cuba CUB
Dominican Republic DOM
El Salvador ELS
French Guiana FRG
Guatemala GUA
Guyana GUY
Haiti HAI
Honduras HON
Jamaica JAM
Leeward Is. LEE
Nicaragua NIC
Panamá PAN
Paraguay PAR
Peru PER
Puerto Rico PUE
Suriname SUR
Trinidad-Tobago TRT
Venezuela VEN
Venezuelan Antilles VNA
Windward Is. WIN
Mexico Central MXC NORTHERN AMERICA
Mexico Gulf MXG
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 462 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 12.2 °C 21.4 °C 24.3 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 26.5 °C 29.7 °C 33.0 °C
Annual rainfall 1,152 mm 1,768 mm 3,436 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 16 mm 176 mm 407 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 462 research-grade observations of Hymenaea courbaril 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 13 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.

  • Hymenaea animifera Stokes
  • Hymenaea candolleana Kunth
  • Hymenaea confertifolia Hayne
  • Hymenaea courbarii var. stilbocarpa (Hayne) Y.T.Lee & Langenh.
  • Hymenaea courbaril var. obtusifolia Ducke
  • Hymenaea courbaril var. subsessilis Ducke
  • Hymenaea courbaril var. villosa Y.T.Lee & Andrade-Lima
  • Hymenaea multiflora Kleinhoonte
  • Hymenaea resinifera Salisb.
  • Hymenaea retusa Willd. ex Hayne
  • Hymenaea splendida Vogel
  • Hymenaea stilbocarpa Hayne
  • Inga megacarpa M.E.Jones

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.