Palicourea tenerior(Cham.) Delprete & J.H.Kirkbr.

WFO wfo-0001348275 Accepted WFO 2026-06 4 photographs CC BY

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.

Palicourea tenerior, photographed by Guillaume Delaitre
fig. a Guillaume Delaitre, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-12-28 / obs. 173896068
Palicourea tenerior, photographed by Guillaume Delaitre
fig. b Guillaume Delaitre, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 173896082
Palicourea tenerior, photographed by Guillaume Delaitre
fig. c Guillaume Delaitre, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 173896108
Palicourea tenerior, photographed by Guillaume Delaitre
fig. d Guillaume Delaitre, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 173896117

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
Smithsonian, US National Herbarium
Accession
US 3393151
Filed as
Palicourea tenerior (Cham.) Delprete & J.H.Kirkbr.
Det. by
Kirkbride, J. H., Jr.
Collected
H. D. Clarke 1997-02-19
Origin
GY
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC0 1.0)

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 16 botanical countries

Regions where Palicourea tenerior is native: Argentina Northeast, Bolivia, Brazil North, Brazil Northeast, Brazil South, Brazil Southeast, Brazil West-Central, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Trinidad-Tobago, Venezuela Argentina NortheastBoliviaBrazil NorthBrazil NortheastBrazil SouthBrazil SoutheastBrazil West-CentralColombiaEcuadorFrench GuianaGuyanaParaguayPeruSurinameTrinidad-TobagoVenezuela
Native distribution of Palicourea tenerior, 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
Argentina Northeast AGE SOUTHERN AMERICA
Bolivia BOL
Brazil North BZN
Brazil Northeast BZE
Brazil South BZS
Brazil Southeast BZL
Brazil West-Central BZC
Colombia CLM
Ecuador ECU
French Guiana FRG
Guyana GUY
Paraguay PAR
Peru PER
Suriname SUR
Trinidad-Tobago TRT
Venezuela VEN

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 69 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 12.5 °C 21.9 °C 22.7 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 27.7 °C 31.3 °C 32.0 °C
Annual rainfall 1,664 mm 3,251 mm 4,196 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 239 mm 284 mm 337 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 69 research-grade observations of Palicourea tenerior 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 24 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.

  • Cephaelis microcephala Miq.
  • Cephaelis tenuis D.Dietr.
  • Nonatelia officinalis Aubl.
  • Oribasia officinalis (Aubl.) J.F.Gmel.
  • Palicourea hassleriana Chodat
  • Palicourea swartziana Borhidi
  • Patabea tenerior Cham.
  • Psychotria barbiflora var. amazonica Müll.Arg.
  • Psychotria barbiflora var. minor Müll.Arg.
  • Psychotria erythrophylla Müll.Arg.
  • Psychotria hassleriana (Chodat) Standl. ex Bernardi
  • Psychotria hoffmannseggiana var. erythrophylla (Müll.Arg.) Steyerm.
  • Psychotria involucrata Willd.
  • Psychotria involucrata Sw.
  • Psychotria mesomorpha Müll.Arg.
  • Psychotria microcephala Miq.
  • Psychotria officinalis (Aubl.) Raeusch. ex Sandwith
  • Psychotria officinalis subsp. wilhelminensis Steyerm.
  • Psychotria tenerior (Cham.) Müll.Arg.
  • Psychotria villosa Vell.
  • Uragoga erythrophylla (Müll.Arg.) Kuntze
  • Uragoga mesomorpha (Müll.Arg.) Kuntze
  • Uragoga officinalis (Aubl.) Baill.
  • Uragoga tenerior (Cham.) 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.