40 photographs › At a glance
- Jan
- Feb
- Mar
- Apr
- May, shaded
- Jun, shaded
- Jul, shaded
- Aug, shaded
- Sep, shaded
- Oct, shaded
- Nov, shaded
- Dec
Summary
Begonia obliqua is the type species of the genus Begonia and the species to which Plumier first gave the name Begonia. It is native to Martinique, Dominica, and Guadeloupe.
Quoted from Wikipedia, "Begonia obliqua", CC BY-SA 4.0.
About the genus · Begonia
Begonia is a genus of perennial flowering plants in the family Begoniaceae. The genus contains more than 2,000 different plant species, distributed primarily across tropical and subtropical regions of Africa, Asia, and Central and South America, with Africa considered the center of origin. Some species are commonly grown indoors as ornamental houseplants in cooler climates, or cultivated outside in summertime for their bright colorful flowers, which have petals but no sepals.
Quoted from Wikipedia, "Begonia", CC BY-SA 4.0.
Cultivation
Grouped as a tropical foliage plant, listed under the genus Begonia in the archetype table, and Kew describes it as “epiphyte”, “wet tropical”.
Seasons
The rain rule reads a sharp season: 70% of the median year's rain (1,500 mm of 2,026 mm) falls in May to November. The temperature curve is flat, 2.4 °C between the warmest and coldest month, so the growing-season rule does not infer a growing season from it. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere. The temperature curve moves under 4 °C between the warmest and coldest month, where the shift rule does not apply, so they are not shifted for a collection elsewhere.
Rain
2,026 mm in the median year at the habitat, 1,500 mm of it May to November. Wettest month October at 245 mm, driest month March at 77 mm. Across the grid cells of the range the year's total runs 1,610 mm to 2,576 mm, the 10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year. The median of the cells' own yearly totals, 1,986 mm, is the year's rain at the top of the page; the 2,026 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: 31 to 43 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 30, the highest 90th-percentile month 43).
Warmth and air
Monthly means: the coldest month's mean nightly low 21.8 °C in February (across the grid cells of the range 20.7 °C to 23.6 °C), the warmest month's mean daily high 26.9 °C in September (median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). Cold floor: none read. The nearest figure is 21.8 °C, the coldest month's mean nightly low, February, 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 that is mostly sea and are not used.
Relative humidity at the habitat: 67 to 72% 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 Begonia in the archetype table, and Kew describes it as “epiphyte”, “wet tropical”. 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 25 °C in Jan, Feb, Mar and Dec to 27 °C in Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep and Oct; mean nightly low from 22 °C in Jan, Feb and Mar to 24 °C in May, Jun, Jul, Aug, Sep and Oct. The cold quarter, Jan to Mar, is the three months around the coldest month's mean nightly low, centred on the 3 months in a row that tie for it. 2,026 mm of rain in the median year (the twelve monthly medians added), the wettest month Oct. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 35 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 | 25 / 23–26 | 25 / 23–26 | 25 / 23–26 | 26 / 24–27 | 26 / 25–28 | 27 / 25–28 | 27 / 25–28 | 27 / 25–28 | 27 / 25–28 | 27 / 25–28 | 26 / 24–27 | 25 / 23–26 |
| Night °C | 22 / 21–24 | 22 / 21–24 | 22 / 21–24 | 23 / 22–24 | 24 / 23–25 | 24 / 23–25 | 24 / 23–25 | 24 / 23–25 | 24 / 23–26 | 24 / 23–25 | 23 / 22–25 | 23 / 22–24 |
| Rain mm | 118 / 86–149 | 82 / 62–103 | 77 / 56–99 | 105 / 79–132 | 144 / 107–185 | 175 / 116–228 | 219 / 135–288 | 242 / 173–310 | 237 / 185–290 | 245 / 201–282 | 238 / 197–303 | 144 / 118–191 |
| DLI | 33 / 31–35 | 37 / 36–38 | 41 / 41–42 | 43 / 42–43 | 42 / 41–43 | 41 / 39–42 | 40 / 39–41 | 40 / 38–41 | 37 / 36–38 | 34 / 33–35 | 32 / 30–33 | 31 / 30–33 |
| RH % | 68 / 62–72 | 67 / 61–70 | 68 / 61–71 | 69 / 62–73 | 70 / 62–74 | 70 / 63–74 | 71 / 64–75 | 71 / 65–75 | 71 / 65–75 | 72 / 65–75 | 71 / 65–75 | 69 / 63–72 |
The daily extremes were read at a NASA POWER cell that is 20% land: neither it nor the next candidates whose coldest month's mean nightly low is within 2 °C of the median across cells sit in a POWER cell that is mostly land, and the rule reads a cold floor only from a cell that is mostly land, so none is read for this species. Nor is the coldest month's mean nightly low taken as one: it is a mean of a month's lows, not its coldest night. What that cell gave over 44 years: absolute minimum 20.2 °C, 1st-percentile night 21.5 °C, 99th-percentile day 28.5 °C.
How this section is made
Natural habitat
How this section is made
Photographs
Photographs: (c) William Stephens, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Matteo Bellucci, some rights reserved (CC BY) (5).
Related
Similar habitat climate The 6 nearest by mean daily high, mean nightly low and rain, month by month. How.
Clusia major Wild Balsam Tree Photo: CC BY, Guillaume Delaitre
Selaginella rotundifolia Selaginellaceae Photo: CC BY, Matteo Bellucci
Aechmea smithiorum Bromeliaceae Photo: CC BY, Wolfgang Ahlmer
Epidendrum difforme Umbrella Epidendrum Photo: CC BY, Laurimar Sepulveda
Selaginella flabellata Fan spikemoss Photo: CC BY, Matteo Bellucci
Chrysothemis melittifolia Gesneriaceae Photo: CC BY, Guillaume DelaitreOther Begonia 279 in the reference
Begonia acerifolia Maple-leaved begonia Photo: CC BY, Yuri Sofronov
Begonia acetosa Ruby begonia Photo: CC0, Daderot Begonia acetosella Begoniaceae 
Begonia acida Begoniaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, Michael Wolf
Begonia aconitifolia Aconite Leaved Begonia Photo: CC BY-SA, rubens curvelo
Begonia acutifolia Begoniaceae Photo: CC BY, Cliff from I now live in Arlington, VA… Begonia albomaculata Begoniaceae Begonia × albopicta Begoniaceae Begonia alice-clarkiae Begoniaceae Begonia almedana Begoniaceae Begonia amphioxus Begoniaceae all 280 ›Names & registers
Also known as Begonia discolor; Begonia disticha; Begonia domingensis; Begonia dominicalis; Begonia dominicensis and 7 more. (GBIF Backbone)
Under another author Begonia crenata Maycock is an older name of this species, not Begonia crenata, a species of the reference; Begonia rotundifolia Griseb. is an older name of this species, not Begonia rotundifolia, a species of the reference. (GBIF Backbone)
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 2026-10-21; 14 records within 1 km of a botanic garden, herbarium or zoo left out (12 at a botanic garden or arboretum, 2 at a zoo; Wikidata's list)climate answeredasked 2026-10-21climate.extremes answeredasked 2026-10-21NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 15.00_-61.250, lapse-corrected +259 m at 6.5 °C/km; read, and set aside: NASA POWER's cell is mostly sea (20% land), so no cold floor is shownwikidata answeredasked 2026-10-21found by its label; its IPNI identifier 319079-2 is Kew's for Begonia obliqua L.wikipedia answeredasked 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 2026-10-21openalex 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 14 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.