🌿 Understory GuidePlant FinderGuild Builder

achiotillo

Alchornea latifolia · Euphorbiaceae

achiotillo (Alchornea latifolia)
Photo: Daniel Mesa · CC BY · via Wikimedia Commons

achiotillo (Alchornea latifolia) is a perennial tree in the Euphorbiaceae family. It is native to North America. USDA records it as hardy in zone 11 and warmer, down to about 40°F.

At a glance

Typetree USDA
Lifecycleperennial USDA
Native statusnative USDA
Mature height52 ft USDA
Lightfull-sun USDA
BloomMarch–April USDA
Flower colorGreen USDA
Hardiness zones11 and warmer USDA
Guild layercanopy Derived

USDA quoted from the USDA PLANTS database · Derived computed by a fixed rule from those columns. No value on this page is estimated.

Growing conditions

It needs full sun. Its cold limit is zone 11; USDA publishes no warm-end limit, so gardeners in warmer zones should check local heat tolerance separately.

Size and growth

At maturity it reaches about 52 ft, making it a substantial woody plant.

Bloom period

USDA records a bloom period of March through April. The flower color USDA records is green. Bloom timing is how the Guild Builder overlaps flowering across a planting so something is in flower for as much of the season as possible.

Bloom period is a claim about when this plant flowers. It is deliberately not a pollinator rating — no dataset we trust publishes one, so we do not make that claim. See Data & sources.

Role in a guild

Canopy. In a layered planting this is the tallest layer of a planting — it sets the light budget everything beneath it lives on. We derive the layer from the plant's growth habit and mature height using a fixed rule, so the same inputs always produce the same layer.

Build a guild around achiotillo →

Tags

evergreendrought-tolerantnativefull-suncanopy

Related plants

Similar role and hardiness

Where this data comes from

Every value on this page comes from the USDA PLANTS database record for symbol ALLA, or is computed from those values by a fixed rule. Nothing here is estimated or model-generated. Where USDA publishes no value, this page omits the claim rather than filling the gap.

Read our full data sources and methodology.

Find more plants for your zone with the Plant Finder.