Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, CC BY, via GBIF · observed growing wild

Adenia sphaerocarpa Claverie

Passifloraceae

Climate known 24 photographs Bulb, tuber or caudex

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.

About the genus · Adenia

Adenia is a genus of flowering plants in the passionflower family Passifloraceae. It contains about 100 species distributed in the Old World tropics and subtropics. The centers of diversity are in Madagascar, eastern and western tropical Africa, and Southeast Asia. More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Adenia”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family

Passifloraceae

Described by

Claverie

Native to

Madagascar

Wild records

5 in range· 5 open

At a glance

Warmest month

31°C

Oct, mean day; nights 18 °C (CHELSA)

Rain

1387mm/yr

7 wet months · peak Feb 383 mm (CHELSA)

Light

31–43DLI

mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)

In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person

Grouped as a bulb, tuber or caudex by the genus Adenia, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a summer growing season, June to August in the northern hemisphere (December to February at the habitat, southern). Habitat rain 1387 mm a year, wettest February at 383 mm, driest September at 7 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 31 to 43 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 13.5 °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.

Cultivation

Grouped as a bulb, tuber or caudex by the genus Adenia, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). The table holds no figure for this group, which spans too much for one minimum; the cold floor is the habitat's alone, and no prose comes from the table.

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

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 (997 mm of 1387 mm) falls in December to February, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 26.2 °C against a yearly mean of 23.9 °C). Months are the habitat's, southern hemisphere; shifted six months for a northern-hemisphere collection: June to August.

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 1387 mm a year, wettest February at 383 mm, driest September at 7 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1387 mm a year at the habitat, 997 mm of it December to February. Wettest month February at 383 mm, driest September at 7 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1031 mm to 1510 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, southern 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: 31 to 43 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 31 to 43 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 25, the highest 90th-percentile month 44).

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 13.5 °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 13.5 °C, the absolute minimum 10.4 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 32.8 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 16.1 °C in August (across the envelope cells 15.2 °C to 20.4 °C), warmest day 30.6 °C in October (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 13.5 °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: 57 to 69% 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

day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 5 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

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
Day °C	29 / 28–32	29 / 28–31	30 / 28–31	30 / 28–31	28 / 27–31	26 / 25–30	26 / 24–29	28 / 25–30	30 / 26–31	31 / 28–33	31 / 29–33	30 / 29–32
Night °C	23 / 19–24	23 / 20–24	22 / 19–24	20 / 19–24	18 / 18–23	17 / 16–21	16 / 15–20	16 / 15–20	16 / 16–21	18 / 17–23	20 / 18–24	22 / 19–24
Rain mm	378 / 229–504	383 / 224–416	182 / 134–210	60 / 46–69	18 / 9–36	9 / 1–20	9 / 1–26	11 / 2–19	7 / 6–21	27 / 23–37	67 / 53–105	236 / 160–256
DLI	34 / 32–39	33 / 31–38	36 / 34–38	35 / 32–37	33 / 28–34	31 / 25–32	32 / 26–32	35 / 31–37	40 / 38–41	43 / 42–44	42 / 42–44	38 / 37–42
RH %	69 / 62–71	69 / 62–72	66 / 61–69	61 / 59–66	60 / 56–63	59 / 53–62	59 / 52–61	57 / 52–61	57 / 54–61	58 / 55–62	60 / 57–63	65 / 60–67

Each figure is the median across the 5 grid cells holding the 5 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 2064:4590 (-13.225, 49.525). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 10.4 °C, 1st-percentile night 13.5 °C, 99th-percentile day 32.8 °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 5 distinct grid cells holding the 5 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 2064:4590 (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 -13.00_49.375, lapse-corrected +397 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 544 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.

NativeMadagascar

Kew's description“climber” · “desert or dry shrubland”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here

Map marker-16.473, 45.417 · in the densest population, 4 records (80% of those in range)

Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 5 georeferenced records inside the native range, all openly licensed and shown on the map. Under a dozen records: treat the map and the climate as indicative.

The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population inside the densest 4° block of the 5 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Photographs: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, CC BY, via GBIF (2); Naturalis Biodiversity Center, CC0, via GBIF (2); Paris, Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, KA, CC BY, via GBIF (4).

Photographs: iNaturalist 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 Adenia sphaerocarpa, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

A survey of the species of the genus Adenia (Passifloraceae) in Madagascar with some new combinations, the description of some new taxa, and a key to the species

W.J.J.O. de Wilde (1970) · Adansonia.

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