Species
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Albuca kirkii (Baker) Brenan

Snake Lily

Climate known 10 photographs Bulb, tuber or caudex
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.

About the genus · Albuca

Albuca is a genus of flowering plants in the family Asparagaceae, subfamily Scilloideae. The genus is distributed mainly in southern and eastern Africa, with some species occurring in northern Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. Plants of the genus are known commonly as slime lilies.

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

Family
Asparagaceae
Described by
(Baker) Brenan
Native to
Rwanda, Zaïre, Kenya +8
Wild records
30 in range· 26 open

At a glance

Warmest month
24°C
Nov, mean day; nights 14 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
1151mm/yr
8 wet months · peak Jan 249 mm (CHELSA)
Light
30–42DLI
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 Albuca, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a summer growing season, June to September in the northern hemisphere (December to March at the habitat, southern). Habitat rain 1151 mm a year, wettest January at 249 mm, driest August at 5 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 30 to 42 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 5.4 °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 Albuca nyikensis Baker; Ornithogalum kirkii Baker.

Cultivation

Grouped as a bulb, tuber or caudex by the genus Albuca, 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 September in the northern hemisphere (December to March 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 (874 mm of 1151 mm) falls in December to March, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 18.2 °C against a yearly mean of 16.7 °C). Months are the habitat's, southern hemisphere; shifted six months for a northern-hemisphere collection: June 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 1151 mm a year, wettest January at 249 mm, driest August at 5 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1151 mm a year at the habitat, 874 mm of it December to March. Wettest month January at 249 mm, driest August at 5 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 716 mm to 1816 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: 30 to 42 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 30 to 42 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 47).

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 5.4 °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 5.4 °C, the absolute minimum 2.3 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 28.3 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 7.4 °C in July (across the envelope cells 5.0 °C to 13.4 °C), warmest day 23.6 °C in November (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 5.4 °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: 55 to 68% 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 19 °C in Jul to 24 °C in Nov; mean night from 7 °C in Jul to 15 °C in Jan. The cold quarter, Jun to Aug, is the three months around the coldest night. 1151 mm of rain a year, most in Jan. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 29 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was 2.3 °C and the 99th-percentile day 28.3 °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°35°28.3° 99th-percentile day (undated)2.3° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400500mm rainDLI 30–42RH 55–68 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 29 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 °C23 / 20–2923 / 20–2922 / 20–2921 / 19–2720 / 18–2619 / 16–2519 / 16–2420 / 18–2623 / 21–2923 / 22–3024 / 21–2923 / 20–29
Night °C15 / 12–2015 / 12–2015 / 12–1913 / 10–1711 / 8–168 / 6–147 / 5–139 / 6–1411 / 8–1713 / 10–1914 / 11–1914 / 12–19
Rain mm249 / 87–412225 / 79–375191 / 86–36398 / 31–22125 / 11–609 / 1–298 / 1–375 / 2–215 / 4–3132 / 13–7795 / 76–165209 / 99–290
DLI37 / 28–4036 / 27–4135 / 30–3834 / 31–3632 / 28–3530 / 25–3631 / 25–3735 / 31–4041 / 37–4442 / 39–4741 / 35–4336 / 31–39
RH %68 / 59–7167 / 57–7167 / 58–7365 / 58–7261 / 54–6759 / 52–6459 / 52–6257 / 50–6155 / 48–5957 / 49–6160 / 55–6465 / 59–70

Each figure is the median across the 29 grid cells holding the 30 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 2038:4275 (-11.925, 33.775). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 2.3 °C, 1st-percentile night 5.4 °C, 99th-percentile day 28.3 °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 29 distinct grid cells holding the 30 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 2038:4275 (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 -12.00_33.750, lapse-corrected +463 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 1661 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.
NativeRwanda, Zaïre, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Angola, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana
Kew's description“bulbous geophyte” · “seasonally dry tropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker-18.933, 32.867 · in the densest population, 20 records (67% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 30 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 26 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 943 km away. 2 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population inside the densest 4° block of the 30 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Albuca kirkiiAlbuca kirkiiAlbuca kirkiiAlbuca kirkiiAlbuca kirkiiAlbuca kirkiiAlbuca kirkiiAlbuca kirkii

Photographs: (c) i_c_riddell, some rights reserved (CC BY) (4); i_c_riddell, CC BY, iNaturalist via GBIF (3); Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA, iNaturalist via GBIF.

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

From algae to angiosperms–inferring the phylogeny of green plants (Viridiplantae) from 360 plastid genomes
Brad R. Ruhfel, Matthew A. Gitzendanner, Pamela S. Soltis, Pamela S. Soltis (2014) · BMC Evolutionary Biology
Plastid genomes reveal support for deep phylogenetic relationships and extensive rate variation among palms and other commelinid monocots
Craig F. Barrett, William J. Baker, Jason R. Comer, John G. Conran (2015) · New Phytologist
Phylogeny and evolution of Asparagaceae subfamily Nolinoideae: new insights from plastid phylogenomics
Yunheng Ji, Jacob B. Landis, Jin Yang, Shuying Wang (2022) · Annals of Botany
Mountains of the Mist: A first plant checklist for the Bvumba Mountains, Manica Highlands (Zimbabwe-Mozambique)
Jonathan Timberlake, Petra Ballings, João de Deus Vidal, Bart Würsten (2020) · PhytoKeys
Taxonomy and cytology of the genus Albuca (Hyacinthaceae) in East Africa
Signe H. Knudtzon, Brita Stedje (1986) · Nordic Journal of Botany
How does agro-pastoralism affect forage and soil properties in western Serengeti, Tanzania?
Pius Yoram Kavana, Ephraim J. Mtengeti, Anthony Zozimus Sangeda, Christopher P. Mahonge (2021) · Tropical Grasslands - Forrajes Tropicales
The complete plastome and phylogeny of Barnardia japonica (Asparagaceae)
Li Chen, Ying Liu, Jianbo Chen, Na‐Sheng Lin (2020) · Mitochondrial DNA Part B
The complete chloroplast genome sequence of Albuca bracteata (Asparagaceae)
Youqing Cheng, Tianzi Wang, Yan Zhang, Jinglei Huang (2026) · Mitochondrial DNA Part B
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility
Occurrence Download
GBIF.org User (2026) · Global Biodiversity Information Facility

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 Albuca 166 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 nothing to reportcarried 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 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)
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 9 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.