Species
+

Aeonium canariense (L.) Webb & Berthel.

Canary Aeonium

Climate known 77 photographs Cactus or succulent
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

Aeonium canariense is a species of flowering plant in the family Crassulaceae. It forms large rosettes of leaves close to the ground but the spikes of yellow flowers stand up to 70 cm tall. It is endemic to the Canary Islands, with five subspecies native to different islands. Subspecies canariense is native of Tenerife in the Canary Islands, where it grows on dry slopes and cliffs in the north of the island from sea level to about 1,300 m (4,300 ft).

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

About the genus · Aeonium

Aeonium, the tree houseleeks, is a genus of about 35 species of succulent, subtropical plants of the family Crassulaceae. Many species are popular in horticulture. The genus name comes from the ancient Greek αἰώνιος / aiōnios (ageless). More on Wikipedia ›

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

Family
Crassulaceae
Described by
(L.) Webb & Berthel.
Native to
Canary Is.
Wild records
905 in range· 155 open

At a glance

Warmest month
23°C
Aug, mean day; nights 21 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
429mm/yr
7 wet months · peak Dec 86 mm (CHELSA)
Light
21–49DLI
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 cactus or succulent by the genus Aeonium, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a winter growing season, November to March in the northern hemisphere (November to March at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 429 mm a year, wettest December at 86 mm, driest July at 2 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 21 to 49 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 13.0 °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 cactus or succulent by the genus Aeonium, 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 winter growing season, November to March in the northern hemisphere (November to March at the habitat, northern).

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

The rain rule reads a winter growing season: 70% of the year's rain (327 mm of 429 mm) falls in November to March, cooler than the year (wet-season mean 16.4 °C against a yearly mean of 18.2 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: May to September.

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 429 mm a year, wettest December at 86 mm, driest July at 2 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

429 mm a year at the habitat, 327 mm of it November to March. Wettest month December at 86 mm, driest July at 2 mm; 3 months under 5 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 306 mm to 693 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: 21 to 49 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 21 to 49 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 18, the highest 90th-percentile month 50).

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 13.0 °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 13.0 °C, the absolute minimum 11.3 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 23.1 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 14.4 °C in February (across the envelope cells 10.3 °C to 16.7 °C), warmest day 22.8 °C in August (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 13.0 °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: 60 to 63% 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 16 °C in Jan to 23 °C in Aug; mean night from 14 °C in Feb to 21 °C in Aug. The cold quarter, Jan to Mar, is the three months around the coldest night. 429 mm of rain a year, most in Dec. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 118 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was 11.3 °C and the 99th-percentile day 23.1 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.10°15°20°25°30°23.1° 99th-percentile day (undated)11.3° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter050100150200mm rainDLI 21–49RH 60–63 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 118 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 °C16 / 12–1816 / 13–1817 / 14–1917 / 14–1918 / 16–1920 / 19–2222 / 21–2423 / 22–2422 / 20–2321 / 18–2319 / 15–2118 / 13–20
Night °C15 / 10–1714 / 10–1715 / 11–1715 / 12–1716 / 13–1818 / 16–2020 / 18–2221 / 19–2220 / 18–2219 / 15–2118 / 13–2016 / 11–18
Rain mm59 / 42–8962 / 46–10450 / 31–7725 / 16–4010 / 5–154 / 1–72 / 0–43 / 2–613 / 6–1945 / 28–7670 / 50–11086 / 62–152
DLI23 / 20–2729 / 26–3337 / 34–4043 / 41–4547 / 46–4849 / 47–5048 / 46–5045 / 43–4639 / 37–4131 / 28–3424 / 21–2821 / 18–24
RH %60 / 54–6361 / 53–6460 / 51–6361 / 54–6462 / 53–6563 / 48–6761 / 39–6861 / 41–6863 / 50–6763 / 56–6661 / 56–6461 / 58–64

Each figure is the median across the 118 grid cells holding the 817 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 1226:3241 (28.675, -17.925). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 11.3 °C, 1st-percentile night 13.0 °C, 99th-percentile day 23.1 °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 118 distinct grid cells holding the 817 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1226:3241 (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 28.50_-18.125, lapse-corrected +393 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 492 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.
NativeCanary Is.
Kew's description“succulent perennial or chamaephyte” · “subtropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker28.395, -16.625 · in the densest population, 874 records (97% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 905 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 155 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 25 km away. 18 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 88 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 of the 905 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Aeonium canarienseAeonium canarienseAeonium canarienseAeonium canarienseAeonium canarienseAeonium canarienseAeonium canarienseAeonium canariense

Photographs: no rights reserved · CC0; (c) fmunoz, some rights reserved (CC BY) (4); (c) Andre Hosper, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Frank Sengpiel, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Jacek Pietruszewski, some rights reserved (CC BY).

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

Flora of Macaronesia. Checklist of vascular plants. 4. revised edition
Aslak Kappel Hansen, P. Sunding (1993) · Sommerfeltia
Checklist of chromosome numbers counted in Canarian vascular plants
J.F. Ardévol Gonzales, Liv Borgen, Pedro Luís Pérez de Páz (1993) · Sommerfeltia
Checklist of the vascular alien flora of Catalonia (northeastern Iberian Peninsula, Spain)
Pere Aymerich, Llorenç Sáez (2019) · Mediterranean Botany
ANTIFUNGAL ACTIVITY OF Cirsium arvense EXTRACTS AGAINST PHYTOPATHOGENIC FUNGUS Macrophomina phaseolina
Saira Banaras, Arshad Javaid, Amna Shoaib, Ejaz Ahmed (2017) · Planta Daninha
Inter- and intra-island speciation and their morphological and ecological correlates in Aeonium (Crassulaceae), a species-rich Macaronesian radiation
Thibaud F.E. Messerschmid, Stefan Abrahamczyk, Ángel Bañares-Baudet, Miguel Brilhante (2023) · Annals of Botany
First Report of Ashy stem blight caused by Macrophomina phaseolina on Aeonium canariense in Egypt
M. M. Abdel-Kader, Nehal S. El-Mougy, M. D. E. Aly, S. M. Lashin (2010) · Journal of Plant Pathology & Microbiology
3D-Printing of succulent plant-like scaffolds with beneficial cell microenvironments for bone regeneration
Yufeng Wang, Zikang Wang, Xiaopeng Yu, Meng Zhang (2023) · Journal of Materials Chemistry B
Phytoliths from modern plants in the Canary Islands as a reference for the reconstruction of long-term vegetation change and culture-environment interactions
Álvaro Castilla-Beltrán, Enrique Fernández‐Palacios, Luc Vrydaghs, Carolina Mallol (2024) · Vegetation History and Archaeobotany
Echeveria Leaf Morpho-Anatomical Analysis and Its Implications for Environmental Stress Conditions
My Khanh Thi Ha Tran, Raisa Aone M. Cabahug, Yoon-Jung Hwang (2024) · Horticulturae
Taxonomic and nomenclatural notes onCrassulaceaeof the Canary Islands, Spain
Ángel Bañares Baudet, Manuel V. Marrero-Gómez, Stephan Scholz (2008) · Willdenowia - Annals of the Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum Berlin-Dahlem
Evaluation of the effectiveness of some mycorrhizal fungi isolates against charcoal rot disease
Waleed Khalid Ahmed, Hutaf A. A. Alsalim, Ashwaq Talip Mohammed, Hiba Mohammed Youssef (2023) · Egyptian Journal of Biological Pest Control

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.

Other Aeonium 35 in the reference

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 23 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.