Plate 1 figs. a–d · 1 observation
This species has been photographed under an open licence only 1 time, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.
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 1 botanical country
| Region | TDWG code | Continent |
|---|---|---|
| Brazil Northeast | BZE | SOUTHERN AMERICA |
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 93 observations
| Condition | 5th percentile | Median | 95th percentile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coldest month, mean daily low | 11.2 °C | 14.0 °C | 17.5 °C |
| Warmest month, mean daily high | 24.3 °C | 27.0 °C | 30.7 °C |
| Annual rainfall | 707 mm | 964 mm | 1,053 mm |
| Rainfall in the driest quarter | 26 mm | 78 mm | 90 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 93 research-grade observations of Micranthocereus purpureus 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 Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.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 9 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.
- Austrocephalocereus lehmannianus (Werderm.) Backeb.
- Austrocephalocereus purpureus (Gürke) Backeb.
- Cephalocereus lehmannianus Werderm.
- Cephalocereus purpureus Gürke
- Cereus purpureus (Gürke) Luetzelb.
- Coleocephalocereus lehmannianus (Werderm.) F.H.Brandt
- Micranthocereus haematocarpus F.Ritter
- Micranthocereus lehmannianus (Werderm.) F.Ritter
- Micranthocereus ruficeps F.Ritter
Sourcesevery claim on this page
- World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
- iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
- 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.