Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations
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 11 botanical countries
| Region | TDWG code | Continent |
|---|---|---|
| Costa Rica | COS | SOUTHERN AMERICA |
| El Salvador | ELS | |
| Guatemala | GUA | |
| Honduras | HON | |
| Nicaragua | NIC | |
| Panamá | PAN | |
| Mexican Pacific Is. | MXI | NORTHERN AMERICA |
| Mexico Central | MXC | |
| Mexico Gulf | MXG | |
| Mexico Southeast | MXT | |
| Mexico Southwest | MXS |
Not drawn on the map: Mexican Pacific Is.. We hold no public-domain boundary for this region, so it is listed rather than guessed at.
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 266 observations
| Condition | 5th percentile | Median | 95th percentile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coldest month, mean daily low | 3.4 °C | 7.3 °C | 14.1 °C |
| Warmest month, mean daily high | 18.6 °C | 22.7 °C | 26.3 °C |
| Annual rainfall | 1,070 mm | 1,662 mm | 4,222 mm |
| Rainfall in the driest quarter | 21 mm | 59 mm | 310 mm |
It is found where winters are cool but frost is light or absent. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 266 research-grade observations of Oreopanax xalapensis 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 Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.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 18 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.
- Aralia ghiesbrechtii Versch. ex É.Morren
- Aralia ghiesbrechtii Verschaff.
- Aralia mexicana (Linden ex K.Koch) Jacob-Makoy
- Aralia thibautii Versch. ex É.Morren
- Aralia thibautii Verschaff.
- Aralia xalapensis Kunth
- Didymopanax mexicanus Linden
- Didymopanax mexicanus Linden ex K.Koch
- Hedera xalapensis (Kunth) DC.
- Monopanax ghiesbreghtii (Verschaff.) Regel
- Oreopanax langlassei Standl.
- Oreopanax loesenerianus Harms
- Oreopanax taubertianus J.D.Sm.
- Oreopanax thibautii (Verschaff.) Hook.f.
- Oreopanax xalapensis var. laxiflorus Kuntze
- Oreopanax xalapensis var. normalis Kuntze
- Oreopanax xalapensis var. spiciforme Kuntze
- Oreopanax xalapensis var. spiciformis Kuntze
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.