It is endemic to the northeastern submontane forests of Bahia, Sergipe, Pernambuco, Paraíba, Ceará and Piauí states of Brazil.

[1] Manilkara rufula, along with its speciatic cousins M. longifolia and M. maxima, provide nectar as food for a primate called the golden-headed lion tamarin (Leontopithecus chrysomelas).

Unlike its dryer neighbors, caatinga moist forests occur primarily along inaccessible ridges and on solitary prominences, and are deluged by tropical rains measuring from 1,000 to 1,300 mm annually.

[5] Manilkara rufula, along with some of its tree species associates (Podocarpus sellowii, Prunus sphaerocarpa, for example) is a remnant of an earlier climatological regime, when the northeast region as a whole was far moister than most of it is today.

A prisoner both geographically and genetically, M. rufula is prevented from further spread by the less-than-ideal arid growing conditions all around it.