Species
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Abelia chinensis R.Br.

Chinese abelia, nuo mi tiao

Climate known 114 photographs
Add one to my plants Sow seed

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Abelia chinensis, commonly known as Chinese abelia, is a species of flowering plant in the honeysuckle family Caprifoliaceae. It is a semi-evergreen, densely branched shrub with dark green foliage.

Text from Wikipedia, “Abelia chinensis”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Abelia

Abelia is a genus of flowering plants in the honeysuckle family, Caprifoliaceae. The genus currently includes six species native to China, Taiwan, and Vietnam.

Text from Wikipedia, “Abelia”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Caprifoliaceae
Described by
R.Br.
Native to
China South-Central, China Southeast, Nansei-shoto +2
Wild records
360 in range· 127 open

At a glance

Warmest month
31°C
Jul, mean day; nights 25 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
1730mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Jun 264 mm (CHELSA)
Light
16–35DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Rain rule: a summer growing season, March to August in the northern hemisphere (March to August at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 1730 mm a year, wettest June at 264 mm, driest December at 44 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 16 to 35 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -3.1 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Abelia cavaleriei H.Lév.; Abelia rupestris Lindl.; Abelia rupestris f. grandiflora Rovelli; Abelia rupestris f. grandiflora Rovelli ex André; Abelia rupestris var. grandiflora Rovelli and 6 more.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: a summer growing season, March to August in the northern hemisphere (March to August at the habitat, northern).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads a summer growing season: 70% of the year's rain (1233 mm of 1730 mm) falls in March to August, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 22.6 °C against a yearly mean of 18.3 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: September to February.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 1730 mm a year, wettest June at 264 mm, driest December at 44 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1730 mm a year at the habitat, 1233 mm of it March to August. Wettest month June at 264 mm, driest December at 44 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1189 mm to 2871 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 16 to 35 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 16 to 35 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 13, the highest 90th-percentile month 37).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor -3.1 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is -3.1 °C, the absolute minimum -13.7 °C, about 19 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 35.0 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 2.8 °C in January (across the envelope cells -0.8 °C to 11.3 °C), warmest day 31.1 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -3.1 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 59 to 65% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 11 °C in Jan to 31 °C in Jul; mean night from 3 °C in Jan to 25 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 1730 mm of rain a year, most in Jun. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 218 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -13.7 °C and the 99th-percentile day 35.0 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-20°-10°10°20°30°40°frost35.0° 99th-percentile day (undated)-13.7° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400500mm rainDLI 16–35RH 59–65 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 218 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C11 / 7–1612 / 9–1716 / 14–2122 / 19–2426 / 23–2728 / 25–3031 / 26–3331 / 25–3328 / 23–3023 / 20–2618 / 15–2213 / 9–18
Night °C3 / -1–115 / 1–128 / 5–1414 / 11–1718 / 15–2122 / 18–2425 / 19–2624 / 19–2621 / 17–2316 / 12–2010 / 7–174 / 1–13
Rain mm75 / 21–111110 / 28–165160 / 51–218198 / 90–262238 / 137–332264 / 180–399201 / 143–334172 / 131–334112 / 83–42285 / 50–23071 / 41–14244 / 20–95
DLI16 / 13–2017 / 15–2121 / 17–2626 / 22–3129 / 26–3330 / 27–3335 / 31–3732 / 30–3428 / 25–3023 / 18–2719 / 15–2217 / 14–20
RH %62 / 58–6763 / 59–6964 / 59–6864 / 59–6863 / 60–6865 / 62–6963 / 60–6863 / 61–6862 / 60–6860 / 58–6760 / 57–6759 / 57–66

Each figure is the median across the 218 grid cells holding the 344 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 1281:5821 (25.925, 111.075). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -13.7 °C, 1st-percentile night -3.1 °C, 99th-percentile day 35.0 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 218 distinct grid cells holding the 344 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1281:5821 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 26.00_111.250, lapse-corrected -229 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 181 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeChina South-Central, China Southeast, Nansei-shoto, Taiwan, Vietnam
Kew's description“shrub” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker24.182, 121.537 · in the densest population, 278 records (77% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 360 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 127 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 406 km away. 469 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 16 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population inside the densest 4° block of the 360 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

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Photographs: (c) Yung-Lun Lin, some rights reserved (CC BY) (6); (c) 曾昱承 Yu-Cheng Zeng, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2).

Photographs: iNaturalist and Wikimedia Commons did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Abelia chinensis, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Naturally Occurring Secoiridoids and Bioactivity of Naturally Occurring Iridoids and Secoiridoids. A Review, Part 2
Biswanath Dinda, Sudhan Debnath, Yoshihiro Harigaya (2007) · Chemical and Pharmaceutical Bulletin
Calcium content and high calcium adaptation of plants in karst areas of southwestern Hunan, China
Xiaocong Wei, Xiangwen Deng, Wenhua Xiang, Pifeng Lei (2018) · Biogeosciences
Behavioural and Electrophysiological Responses of Female Anopheles gambiae Mosquitoes to Volatiles from a Mango Bait
Felician C. Meza, Joe M. Roberts, Islam S. Sobhy, Fredros O. Okumu (2020) · Journal of Chemical Ecology
Scalariform-to-simple transition in vessel perforation plates triggered by differences in climate during the evolution of Adoxaceae
Frederic Lens, Rutger Vos, Guillaume Charrier, Timotheüs van der Niet (2016) · Annals of Botany
Reconstructing Dipsacales phylogeny using Angiosperms353: issues and insights
Aaron K. Lee, Ian S. Gilman, Mansa Srivastav, Ariel D. Lerner (2021) · American Journal of Botany

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zam
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive)
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 158 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.