Peperomia glabella(Sw.) A.Dietr.

cypress peperomia

WFO wfo-0000478397 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Peperomia glabella, photographed by Diego Dos Anjos Souza
fig. a Diego Dos Anjos Souza, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-05-14 / obs. 197602012
Peperomia glabella, photographed by Guillaume Delaitre
fig. b Guillaume Delaitre, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 147900423
Peperomia glabella, photographed by Letizia Weichgrebe
fig. c Letizia Weichgrebe, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 56578137
Peperomia glabella, photographed by Letizia Weichgrebe
fig. d Letizia Weichgrebe, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 50517906
Peperomia glabella, photographed by Letizia Weichgrebe
fig. e Letizia Weichgrebe, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 56231093
Peperomia glabella, photographed by botanygirl
fig. f botanygirl, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 13641976
Peperomia glabella, photographed by Elliot Greiner
fig. g Elliot Greiner, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 181591910
Peperomia glabella, photographed by Joseph Hubbard
fig. h Joseph Hubbard, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 143447326

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
4121012
Filed as
Peperomia glabella (Sw.) A.Dietr.
Det. by
J. E. Jiménez Vargas 2024-08-01
Collected
L. Acosta 2000-02-02
Origin
CR
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 37 botanical countries

Regions where Peperomia glabella is native: Malaya, Florida, Mexico Central, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Southeast, Mexico Southwest, Bahamas, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil North, Brazil Northeast, Brazil South, Brazil Southeast, Cayman Is., Central American Pacific Is., Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Leeward Is., Nicaragua, Panamá, Peru, Puerto Rico, Suriname, Trinidad-Tobago, Venezuela, Venezuelan Antilles, Windward Is. MalayaFloridaMexico CentralMexico GulfMexico NortheastMexico SoutheastMexico SouthwestBelizeBoliviaBrazil NorthBrazil NortheastBrazil SouthBrazil SoutheastCentral American Pacific Is.ColombiaCosta RicaCubaDominican RepublicEcuadorFrench GuianaGuatemalaGuyanaHaitiHondurasJamaicaNicaraguaPanamáPeruPuerto RicoSurinameTrinidad-TobagoVenezuela BahamasCayman Is.Leeward Is.Venezuelan AntillesWindward Is.
Native distribution of Peperomia glabella, 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
Bahamas BAH SOUTHERN AMERICA
Belize BLZ
Bolivia BOL
Brazil North BZN
Brazil Northeast BZE
Brazil South BZS
Brazil Southeast BZL
Cayman Is. CAY
Central American Pacific Is. CPI
Colombia CLM
Costa Rica COS
Cuba CUB
Dominican Republic DOM
Ecuador ECU
French Guiana FRG
Guatemala GUA
Guyana GUY
Haiti HAI
Honduras HON
Jamaica JAM
Leeward Is. LEE
Nicaragua NIC
Panamá PAN
Peru PER
Puerto Rico PUE
Suriname SUR
Trinidad-Tobago TRT
Venezuela VEN
Venezuelan Antilles VNA
Windward Is. WIN
Florida FLA NORTHERN AMERICA
Mexico Central MXC
Mexico Gulf MXG
Mexico Northeast MXE
Mexico Southeast MXT
Mexico Southwest MXS
Malaya MLY ASIA-TROPICAL

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 177 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 10.2 °C 20.0 °C 22.9 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 25.5 °C 28.2 °C 32.3 °C
Annual rainfall 1,274 mm 2,212 mm 3,523 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 105 mm 272 mm 499 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 177 research-grade observations of Peperomia glabella 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.

Named cultivars 1 recorded

Selections of Peperomia glabella that somebody named and propagated. A cultivar is not a botanical taxon: it is governed by the cultivated-plant code rather than the botanical one, so it appears in no taxonomic backbone, and it has no native range and no wild population of its own. These get no page here, because a cultivar has no photographs, no range and no flowering data of its own, and a page with none of those is not a page.

From Wikidata (CC0), joined to this species on its World Flora Online identifier, so the link to the parent is exact rather than a name match. This list is what is recorded in an openly licensed register; it is not every cultivar that exists, and for many genera it is not close. Why, and how far short it falls.

Also published as 71 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.

  • Micropiper melanostigma Miq.
  • Peperomia acuminata (L.) Dahlst.
  • Peperomia atropunctata Miq.
  • Peperomia balineorum Trel.
  • Peperomia buchii C.DC.
  • Peperomia buchii var. macrostachya Trel.
  • Peperomia cattii Trel.
  • Peperomia caulibarbis Miq.
  • Peperomia caulibarbis var. jimenesana C.DC.
  • Peperomia chagalana C.DC.
  • Peperomia conjungens Trel.
  • Peperomia cubana f. platana Trel.
  • Peperomia fuscociliata Trel.
  • Peperomia glabella f. parvifolia Kuntze
  • Peperomia glabella var. brachyphylla (Willd. ex Roem. & Schult.) C.DC.
  • Peperomia glabella var. caulibarbis (Miq.) Fawc. & Rendle
  • Peperomia glabella var. eustatiana C.DC.
  • Peperomia glabella var. jimenesana C.DC.
  • Peperomia glabella var. melanostigma (Miq.) Dahlst.
  • Peperomia glabella var. microphylla C.DC. ex Donn.Sm.
  • Peperomia glabella var. nervulosa (C.DC.) Yunck.
  • Peperomia glabella var. nigropunctata Dahlst.
  • Peperomia houelmonte Trel. ex Stehlé
  • Peperomia jimenesana Trel.

and 47 more.

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.