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Aconitum kusnezoffii; photograph Urgamal Magsar, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF CC BYUrgamal Magsar, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF

Aconitum kusnezoffii Rchb.

Kusnezoff Monkshood; Kusnezoff’s monk’shood

Ranunculaceae · Buryatiya, Chita +10

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Aconitum kusnezoffii, photograph Jens-Christian Svenning, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIFAconitum kusnezoffii, photograph Urgamal Magsar, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIFAconitum kusnezoffii, photograph Repina Tatyana, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIFAconitum kusnezoffii, photograph Repina Tatyana, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIFAconitum kusnezoffii, photograph Repina Tatyana, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIFAconitum kusnezoffii, photograph Repina Tatyana, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF 22 photographs ›
Habitat figures
Cold floor (1 night in 100)
-20.9°C
Record low -29.3 °C in 44 years, at a typical spot in the range NASA POWER
Warmest month, mean daily high
25°C
Jul and Aug at the habitat CHELSA
Rain a year (median across the range)
701mm
7 months of 25 mm or more in the median year CHELSA
Open-sky light
14–37DLI
Lowest to highest month (DLI) CHELSA
The year in your months, northern hemisphere
  1. Jan
  2. Feb
  3. Mar
  4. Apr
  5. May
  6. Jun
  7. Jul
  8. Aug
  9. Sep
  10. Oct
  11. Nov
  12. Dec
Wet summers: the rain comes June to September, read as a summer growing season. rain rule, CHELSA
Northern hemisphere unless you set your site. The chart is in the habitat's months.

About the genus · Aconitum

Aconitum, also known as aconite, monkshood, wolfsbane, devil's helmet, or blue rocket, is a genus of over 250 species of flowering plants belonging to the family Ranunculaceae. These herbaceous, frequently toxic perennial plants are chiefly native to the mountainous parts of the Northern Hemisphere in North America, Europe, and Asia, growing in the moisture-retentive but well-draining soils of mountain meadows.

Quoted from Wikipedia, "Aconitum", CC BY-SA 4.0.

Cultivation

Seasons

The rain rule reads a summer growing season: 70% of the median year's rain (524 mm of 721 mm) falls in June to September, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 19.1 °C against a yearly mean of 6.9 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: December to March.

Rain

721 mm in the median year at the habitat, 524 mm of it June to September. Wettest month July at 189 mm, driest month January at 8 mm. Across the grid cells of the range the year's total runs 517 mm to 1,626 mm, the 10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year. The median of the cells' own yearly totals, 701 mm, is the year's rain at the top of the page; the 721 mm here is the median year's, the twelve monthly medians added, which the rain rule reads. Habitat calendar, northern hemisphere; median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA.

Light

Open sky over the habitat: 14 to 37 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 10, the highest 90th-percentile month 39).

Warmth and air
Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at a typical spot in the range is -20.9 °C, the absolute minimum -29.3 °C, 8,060 frost nights in 44 years, 183.2 a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 32.9 °C. Monthly means: the coldest month's mean nightly low -15.7 °C in January (across the grid cells of the range -26.9 °C to -7.2 °C), the warmest month's mean daily high 24.8 °C in July (median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). Cold floor: -20.9 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at a typical spot in the range (NASA POWER).

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 51 to 63% across the year (monthly means, median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

How this section is made

Each card states this species' habitat figures with their sources, and what two fixed rules read from them; nothing here says what the plant does, wants or tolerates. The rules · the terms.

Seasons. Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the grid cells of the range: 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 moves 4 °C or more and the habitat lies 10° or more from the equator. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

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

Light. 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.

Temperature. NASA POWER daily minima and maxima over 44 years at a typical spot in the range, lapse-corrected +310 m to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the grid cells of the range. The cold floor is the 1st-percentile night named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity. CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the grid cells of the range.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat months, northern hemisphere

Habitat climate of Aconitum kusnezoffii through the yearWarmest months July and August, mean daily high 25 °C; coldest month January, mean nightly low -15.7 °C; 721 mm of rain in the median year (the twelve monthly medians added). Medians across the range, from CHELSA; the extremes at the edge from NASA POWER. Habitat months, northern hemisphere.-40°-20°0°20°40°frost32.9° 99th-percentile day, NASA POWER-29.3° lowest night in 44 years, NASA POWER°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400mm rainDLI 14–37RH 51–63%JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain medians and 10th–90th percentile across 126 habitat cells, CHELSA cold quarter: the three months around the coldest month's mean nightly low extremes over 44 years at a typical spot in the range, from NASA POWER, marked at the edge, in no month DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C-4 / -16–1-1 / -9–45 / -1–1013 / 7–1718 / 15–2323 / 20–2625 / 22–2825 / 21–2720 / 15–2313 / 7–184 / -5–10-3 / -14–4
Night °C-16 / -27–-7-12 / -23–-5-6 / -14–-11 / -4–68 / 3–1213 / 10–1717 / 13–2117 / 12–2110 / 4–163 / -4–9-6 / -15–1-13 / -23–-5
Rain mm8 / 3–359 / 5–4817 / 11–7935 / 23–10064 / 40–141106 / 76–189189 / 111–382152 / 106–33877 / 57–20334 / 23–6418 / 9–5712 / 3–30
DLI17 / 12–1923 / 19–2429 / 27–3135 / 33–3637 / 35–3937 / 34–3832 / 27–3530 / 27–3227 / 24–2923 / 18–2516 / 12–1914 / 10–17
RH %55 / 47–6654 / 47–6253 / 46–5751 / 45–5654 / 47–5958 / 53–6563 / 59–7063 / 59–6859 / 55–6356 / 51–5854 / 49–5955 / 47–64
How this section is made
Each figure is the median across the 126 grid cells holding the 177 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. A dash is a month one or more of those cells has no figure for in the grid (a variable CHELSA does not carry there), so no median is taken rather than one over fewer cells. Extremes and elevation were read at a typical spot in the range, cell 998:5912 (40.075, 115.625). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -29.3 °C, 1st-percentile night -20.9 °C, 99th-percentile day 32.9 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Across the range: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 126 distinct grid cells holding 177 of the 177 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 998:5912 (its coldest month's mean nightly low nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 40.00_115.625, lapse-corrected +310 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 1148 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 the cells of the in-range records placed well enough to read one, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeBuryatiya, Chita, Irkutsk, Yakutskiya, Amur, Khabarovsk, Primorye, Inner Mongolia, Manchuria, China North-Central, Mongolia, Korea · regions are the level-3 units of the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions, as Kew's World Checklist records ranges, some under historical names such as Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia (how).
Map marker39.96, 115.429 · in the densest population, 120 records (25% of those in range)
Kew's description“perennial or tuberous geophyte” · “temperate” · quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Evidence usedThe map marker rests on all 487 georeferenced records inside the native range; the climate across the range on the 177 of them placed to within 10 km; the map shows only the 260 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 1407 km away. 88 records outside the WCVP native range not used. 310 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km, or with no stated accuracy (admitted only as a person's observation to three decimals), and stay on the map but off the climate.
How this section is made
The map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population of the 487 in-range records; it decides nothing. Records outside the native range, living specimens and records marked introduced are not used; which records count.

Photographs

Aconitum kusnezoffii, photograph 1did not loadAconitum kusnezoffii, photograph 2did not loadAconitum kusnezoffii, photograph 3did not loadAconitum kusnezoffii, photograph 4did not loadAconitum kusnezoffii, photograph 5did not loadAconitum kusnezoffii, photograph 6did not load

Photographs: Jens-Christian Svenning, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF; Urgamal Magsar, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF; Repina Tatyana, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF (4).

Similar habitat climate The 6 nearest by mean daily high, mean nightly low and rain, month by month. How.

Clematis brevicaudata Clematis brevicaudata Short plumous clematis Photo: CC BY, Oleksandr ShynderUlmus lamellosa Ulmus lamellosa Ulmaceae Photo: CC BY, Jane CharlenElsholtzia stauntonii Elsholtzia stauntonii Mintbush Photo: CC BY, Jane CharlenLilium concolor Lilium concolor Morning-star lily Photo: CC BY, Wang.QGSyneilesis aconitifolia Syneilesis aconitifolia Shredded umbrella plant Photo: CC BY, Tatyana PetrenkoAquilegia yabeana Aquilegia yabeana Ranunculaceae Photo: CC BY, Wang.QG

Other Aconitum 52 in the reference

Aconitum alboviolaceum Aconitum alboviolaceum Whitish-purple monk’shood Photo: CC BY, Dmitriy BochkovAconitum angustifolium Aconitum angustifolium Ranunculaceae Photo: CC0, author not statedAconitum anthora Aconitum anthora Yellow monkshood Photo: CC BY-SA, xulescu_gAconitum axilliflorum Aconitum axilliflorum Ranunculaceae Photo: CC BY, Repina TatyanaAconitum baicalense Aconitum baicalense Ranunculaceae Photo: CC BY, Urgamal MagsarAconitum barbatum Aconitum barbatum Yellow monk’shood Photo: CC BY, Иван Пристрем Aconitum brevicalcaratum Ranunculaceae Aconitum × cammarum Aconitum × cammarum Hybrid monkshood Photo: CC BY, Jon MortinAconitum carmichaelii Aconitum carmichaelii Carmichael's monkshood Photo: CC0, author not statedAconitum columbianum Aconitum columbianum Columbia monkshood Photo: CC0, author not stated Aconitum crassiflorum Ranunculaceae Aconitum decipiens Ranunculaceae all 53 ›

Names & registers

Also known as Aconitum birobidshanicum; Aconitum gibbiferum; Aconitum kusnezoffii subsp. birobidshanicum; Aconitum kusnezoffii subsp. latisectum; Aconitum kusnezoffii subsp. tenuisectum and 24 more. (GBIF Backbone)

GBIFPOWOIPNIWFOWikidata

The record

Family
Ranunculaceae
Described by
Rchb.
Native to
Buryatiya, Chita, Irkutsk +9
Wild records
487 in range · 260 open

Every figure here is derived from public data by a stated rule and names its source; nothing about this species is written for its page by a person or by AI, apart from the marked, credited quotations. How →

Where this page came from built 2026-10-21
GBIF species record gbif.species answeredasked 2026-10-21
GBIF synonyms gbif.synonyms answeredasked 2026-10-21
GBIF common names gbif.vernacular answeredasked 2026-10-21names fetched 2026-10-21
WCVP native range wcvp.distribution answeredas of 2026-06-04
GBIF occurrence records gbif.occurrences answeredas of 2026-10-21GBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.hbdw64, of 2026-10-21; 5 records within 1 km of a botanic garden, herbarium or zoo left out (3 at a botanic garden or arboretum, 1 at a herbarium, 1 at a zoo; Wikidata's list)
Habitat climate climate answeredasked 2026-10-21
Daily extremes (NASA POWER) climate.extremes answeredasked 2026-10-21NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 40.00_115.625, lapse-corrected +310 m at 6.5 °C/km
Wikidata wikidata answeredasked 2026-10-21
Wikipedia wikipedia nothing to reportasked 2026-10-21
iNaturalist taxon inat.taxon not asked
iNaturalist photographs, wild inat.photos.wild not asked
iNaturalist photographs, cultivated inat.photos.cultivated not asked
GBIF media gbif.media answeredasked 2026-10-21
OpenAlex papers openalex not askednot yet asked for this reference; a later fill takes the papers from OpenAlex's snapshot

Every source is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, refused, failed, not been asked, or answered twice where one answer is taken (“not taken: two items answered”), and, for a source asked when this page was built, when: the figures are as the source held them that day; a source read from a file (Kew's World Checklist, a GBIF download) says "as of" the file's day instead; a row carried from an earlier build of the page names that build instead. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 28 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.

Cultifolio

Opening your plants…