Palicourea axillaris(Sw.) Borhidi

WFO wfo-0000920685 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 6 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 6 times, 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.

Palicourea axillaris, photographed by Jake Rehage
fig. a Jake Rehage, CC0 1.0 / 2021-02-04 / obs. 112068915
Palicourea axillaris, photographed by Trevor Van Loon
fig. b Trevor Van Loon, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 177914899
Palicourea axillaris, photographed by Jake Rehage
fig. c Jake Rehage, CC0 1.0 / obs. 112068926
Palicourea axillaris, photographed by Loren Cassin Sackett
fig. d Loren Cassin Sackett, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 184513096
Palicourea axillaris, photographed by Trevor Van Loon
fig. e Trevor Van Loon, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 181947916
Palicourea axillaris, photographed by Trevor Van Loon
fig. f Trevor Van Loon, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 177915084
Palicourea axillaris, photographed by Trevor Van Loon
fig. g Trevor Van Loon, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 177802156
Palicourea axillaris, photographed by Jake Rehage
fig. h Jake Rehage, CC0 1.0 / obs. 154620807

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 16 botanical countries

Regions where Palicourea axillaris is native: Mexico Southeast, Mexico Southwest, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Leeward Is., Nicaragua, Panamá, Peru, Trinidad-Tobago, Venezuela, Windward Is. Mexico SoutheastMexico SouthwestColombiaCosta RicaEcuadorEl SalvadorGuatemalaGuyanaHondurasNicaraguaPanamáPeruTrinidad-TobagoVenezuela Leeward Is.Windward Is.
Native distribution of Palicourea axillaris, 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
Colombia CLM SOUTHERN AMERICA
Costa Rica COS
Ecuador ECU
El Salvador ELS
Guatemala GUA
Guyana GUY
Honduras HON
Leeward Is. LEE
Nicaragua NIC
Panamá PAN
Peru PER
Trinidad-Tobago TRT
Venezuela VEN
Windward Is. WIN
Mexico Southeast MXT NORTHERN AMERICA
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 151 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 7.6 °C 12.4 °C 18.1 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 17.7 °C 22.1 °C 25.5 °C
Annual rainfall 1,346 mm 2,779 mm 4,444 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 63 mm 287 mm 491 mm

It is barely found anywhere that freezes. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 151 research-grade observations of Palicourea axillaris 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.

  • Callicocca axillaris (Sw.) Forsyth f.
  • Cephaelis axillaris Sw.
  • Cephaelis cacuminis Steyerm.
  • Evea axillaris (Sw.) Standl.
  • Psychotria aubletiana Steyerm.
  • Psychotria aubletiana f. pubescens Steyerm.
  • Psychotria aubletiana f. tomentella Steyerm.
  • Psychotria aubletiana var. andina Steyerm.
  • Psychotria aubletiana var. cacuminis Steyerm.
  • Psychotria aubletiana var. centro-americana Steyerm.
  • Psychotria cacuminis Steyerm.
  • Tapogomea axillaris (Sw.) Poir.
  • Uragoga axillaris (Sw.) 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.