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 72 botanical countries
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 1,710 observations
| Condition | 5th percentile | Median | 95th percentile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coldest month, mean daily low | 9.4 °C | 15.3 °C | 22.2 °C |
| Warmest month, mean daily high | 23.9 °C | 27.6 °C | 32.3 °C |
| Annual rainfall | 1,044 mm | 1,853 mm | 3,510 mm |
| Rainfall in the driest quarter | 61 mm | 164 mm | 475 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 1,710 research-grade observations of Rhipsalis baccifera 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 Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.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 76 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.
- Cactus caripensis Kunth
- Cactus cassythoides Moc. & Sessé ex DC.
- Cactus epidendrum L.
- Cactus fasciculatus Willd.
- Cactus garipensis Kunth
- Cactus parasiticus L.
- Cactus parasiticus Lam.
- Cactus pendulinus Sieber ex DC.
- Cactus pendulinus Sieber ex Baker
- Cactus pendulus Sw.
- Cactus quadrangularis Haw.
- Cassytha baccifera J.S.Muell.
- Cassytha baccifera Sol. ex J.S.Muell.
- Cassytha filiformis Mill.
- Cassytha polysperma Aiton ex Gaertn.
- Cereus baccifer Hook.
- Cereus bacciferus Hemsl.
- Cereus caripensis (Kunth) DC.
- Cereus parasiticus Haw. ex Steud.
- Hariota cassytha Cels ex C.F.Först.
- Hariota cassytha Lem.
- Hariota fasciculata (Willd.) Kuntze
- Hariota horrida (Baker) Kuntze
- Hariota parasitica Kuntze
and 52 more.
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.
- Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
- 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.