26 photographs › At a glance
- Jan
- Feb
- Mar
- Apr
- May, shaded
- Jun, shaded
- Jul, shaded
- Aug, shaded
- Sep, shaded
- Oct, shaded
- Nov
- Dec
About the genus · Astilbe
Astilbe is a genus of 18 species of rhizomatous flowering plants within the family Saxifragaceae, native to mountain ravines and woodlands in Asia and North America. Some species are known by the common names false goat's beard and false spirea.
Quoted from Wikipedia, "Astilbe", CC BY-SA 4.0.
Cultivation
Grouped as a temperate garden plant, listed under the genus Astilbe in the archetype table, and Kew describes it as “perennial”, “temperate”.
Seasons
The rain rule reads a summer growing season: 70% of the median year's rain (2,642 mm of 3,514 mm) falls in May to October, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 12.6 °C against a yearly mean of 9.0 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: November to April.
Rain
3,514 mm in the median year at the habitat, 2,642 mm of it May to October. Wettest month September at 525 mm, driest month December at 87 mm. Across the grid cells of the range the year's total runs 3,079 mm to 4,381 mm, the 10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year. The median of the cells' own yearly totals, 3,695 mm, is the year's rain at the top of the page; the 3,514 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: 18 to 35 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 16, the highest 90th-percentile month 36).
Warmth and air
Monthly means: the coldest month's mean nightly low -1.6 °C in January (across the grid cells of the range -3.0 °C to 2.8 °C), the warmest month's mean daily high 16.9 °C in July (median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). Cold floor: none read. The nearest figure is -1.6 °C, the coldest month's mean nightly low, January, in the median year (CHELSA); a month's mean of its nightly lows is warmer than the nights a floor is read from. The daily extremes were read at a weather cell whose ground is too far above or below the typical spot to correct for, and are not used.
Relative humidity at the habitat: 58 to 65% 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. CHELSA monthly means, median year across the grid cells of the range. No cold floor is read without a daily extremes series; the coldest month's mean nightly low named in its sentence is not one. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.
Humidity. CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the grid cells of the range.
Group. Listed under the genus Astilbe in the archetype table, and Kew describes it as “perennial”, “temperate”. A group is taken only where Kew's description of the species agrees with the table's listing. The table gives no figure and no prose; the cold floor is the habitat's alone.
Climate across the habitat
Habitat months, northern hemisphere
Mean daily high from 6 °C in Jan to 17 °C in Jul; mean nightly low from -2 °C in Jan to 9 °C in Jun, Jul and Aug. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest month's mean nightly low. 3,514 mm of rain in the median year (the twelve monthly medians added), the wettest month Sep. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 13 habitat cells. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.
Figures by month
| Figure | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Day °C | 6 / 4–11 | 7 / 6–12 | 10 / 8–14 | 12 / 11–17 | 14 / 13–18 | 16 / 15–19 | 17 / 16–20 | 16 / 15–20 | 15 / 14–19 | 13 / 12–17 | 10 / 9–15 | 7 / 5–12 |
| Night °C | -2 / -3–3 | 0 / -2–4 | 2 / 1–7 | 5 / 4–9 | 7 / 6–11 | 9 / 8–12 | 9 / 8–13 | 9 / 8–13 | 8 / 7–12 | 6 / 5–10 | 3 / 2–8 | -1 / -2–4 |
| Rain mm | 95 / 77–123 | 178 / 147–209 | 188 / 176–200 | 221 / 192–283 | 394 / 333–536 | 508 / 398–704 | 472 / 394–759 | 508 / 445–824 | 525 / 452–638 | 235 / 181–408 | 103 / 78–197 | 87 / 72–126 |
| DLI | 18 / 17–22 | 20 / 19–25 | 26 / 25–30 | 29 / 29–32 | 30 / 29–31 | 30 / 29–32 | 35 / 33–36 | 32 / 30–32 | 28 / 27–29 | 26 / 24–27 | 21 / 19–23 | 18 / 16–21 |
| RH % | 59 / 57–64 | 62 / 60–66 | 61 / 60–65 | 63 / 62–65 | 64 / 63–66 | 64 / 63–67 | 62 / 61–66 | 64 / 63–69 | 65 / 62–69 | 64 / 59–67 | 61 / 57–65 | 58 / 56–64 |
The daily extremes were not used: the correction for elevation, +1421 m, is beyond the 1,000 m either way that a lapse rate is applied over, so the weather cell's ground is other terrain than the typical spot's. So no cold floor is read for this species, and the coldest month's mean nightly low is not taken as one. What that cell gave, so corrected, over 44 years: absolute minimum -15.0 °C, 1st-percentile night -8.7 °C.
How this section is made
Natural habitat
How this section is made
Photographs
Photographs: (c) crothfels, some rights reserved (CC BY) (5); (c) 謝麗霦, some rights reserved (CC BY).
Related
Similar habitat climate The 6 nearest by mean daily high, mean nightly low and rain, month by month. How.
Argentina leuconota Silverleaf Cinquefoil Photo: CC BY, Licheng Shih
Veronica morrisonicola Plantaginaceae Photo: CC BY, 如此甚好
Rosa morrisonensis Rosaceae Photo: CC BY, crothfels
Primula miyabeana Primulaceae Photo: CC BY, Ben Costamagna
Spiraea morrisonicola Rosaceae Photo: CC BY, Ben Costamagna
Aconitum fukutomei Scandent monkshood Photo: CC BY, Yu-Chang ChenOther Astilbe 11 in the reference
Astilbe biternata Appalachian false goat's-beard Photo: CC BY, Shelby Lyn Sanders Astilbe chinensis Saxifragaceae Astilbe glaberrima Saxifragaceae 
Astilbe grandis Korean astilbe Photo: CC BY-SA, Krzysztof Ziarnek, Kenraiz
Astilbe japonica False buck's-beard Photo: CC BY-SA, Katryna Rokicki
Astilbe longicarpa Chinese Astilbe Photo: CC0, 葉子
Astilbe microphylla Saxifragaceae Photo: CC BY, WATANABE Hitoshi 渡辺仁
Astilbe rivularis Tall False-buck's-beard Photo: CC0, author not stated
Astilbe rubra Tall False-buck's-beard Photo: CC BY, Takaaki Hattori
Astilbe simplicifolia Entire-leaf false goat’s beard Photo: CC BY-SA, KENPEI
Astilbe thunbergii Thunberg's astilbe Photo: CC BY, Marco Mussita Names & registers
The record
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 answeredasked 2026-10-21gbif.synonyms answeredasked 2026-10-21gbif.vernacular answeredasked 2026-10-21names fetched 2026-10-21wcvp.distribution answeredas of 2026-06-04gbif.occurrences answeredas of 2026-10-21GBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.hbdw64, of 2026-10-21climate answeredasked 2026-10-21climate.extremes answeredasked 2026-10-21NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 24.50_121.250, lapse-corrected +1421 m at 6.5 °C/km; read, and set aside: the correction for elevation, +1421 m, is beyond the 1,000 m either way that a lapse rate is applied over, so the weather cell's ground is other terrain than the typical spot's, so no cold floor is shownwikidata answeredasked 2026-10-21wikipedia nothing to reportasked 2026-10-21inat.photos.wild answeredasked 2026-10-22from iNaturalist's open data of 2026-09-27: research-grade observations with an open-licence photograph, the 24 whose photographs iNaturalist received last (the open data holds no votes); filled 2026-10-22inat.photos.cultivated not askedgbif.media answeredasked 2026-10-21none of the photographs on this page is credited to GBIF: those shown are other sources', and GBIF's were the same photographs or were set aside by the photograph rulesopenalex not askednot yet asked for this reference; a later fill takes the papers from OpenAlex's snapshotEvery 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 9 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.