Calanthe tankervilleae, Oʻahu, Kailua, HI, US

Calanthe tankervilleae (Banks) M.W.Chase, Christenh. & Schuit.

Chinese Ground Orchid, Nun's Orchid, Nun's-Hood Orchid

Climate known 56 photographs Orchid

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

Calanthe tankervilleae, commonly known as the greater swamp-orchid, swamp lily, swamp orchid, nun's-hood orchid, nun's orchid, veiled orchid, Lady Tankerville's swamp orchid or 鹤顶兰 , is a species of orchid native to areas from Asia to islands in the Pacific Ocean. It has large, pleated leaves and tall flowering stems bearing up to twenty five white, brown, mauve and yellow flowers. It was named for Lady Tankerville who was the first person to make the orchid flower successfully in England. It was the first tropical orchid to flower in England.

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

About the genus · Calanthe

Calanthe, commonly known as Christmas orchids, is a genus of about 220 species of orchids in the family Orchidaceae. They are evergreen or deciduous terrestrial plants with thick roots, small oval pseudobulbs, large corrugated leaves and upright, sometimes arching flowering stems. The sepals and petals are narrow and a similar size to each other and the labellum usually has spreading lobes.

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

Family

Orchidaceae

Described by

(Banks) M.W.Chase, Christenh. & Schuit.

Native to

China South-Central, Hainan, China Southeast +37

Wild records

484 in range· 258 open

At a glance

Warmest month

26°C

Feb, mean day; nights 20 °C (CHELSA)

Rain

1838mm/yr

12 wet months · peak Mar 190 mm (CHELSA)

Light

25–35DLI

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 orchid by the genus Calanthe, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (December to July at the habitat (not shifted)). Habitat rain 1838 mm a year, wettest March at 190 mm, driest October at 103 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 25 to 35 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 14.6 °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 Bletia tancarvilleae (L'Hér.) R.Br.; Bletia tankervilleae (Banks) R.Br.; Calanthe bachmaensis Gagnep.; Calanthe speciosa Vieill.; Dendrobium veratrifolium (Lindl.) Roxb. and 45 more.

Cultivation

Grouped as a orchid by the genus Calanthe, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). The table supplies one figure for this group, a conventional minimum for the cold floor, and no prose.

Its year Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (December to July at the habitat (not shifted)).

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

The rain rule reads no season: 70% of the year's rain (1346 mm of 1838 mm) takes 8 months, December to July. Mean temperature moves 3.6 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, southern hemisphere; with a flat temperature curve there is no season to reverse, so they are not shifted for a collection elsewhere.

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 1838 mm a year, wettest March at 190 mm, driest October at 103 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1838 mm a year at the habitat, 1346 mm of it December to July. Wettest month March at 190 mm, driest October at 103 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1278 mm to 3755 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: 25 to 35 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 25 to 35 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 43).

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 14.6 °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 14.6 °C, the absolute minimum 13.0 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 28.6 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 17.0 °C in August (across the envelope cells 12.1 °C to 24.4 °C), warmest day 25.6 °C in February (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 14.6 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER); the archetype table's minimum for a orchid, 13 °C, is lower and does not raise it.

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, and the archetype table's group minimum where that is higher. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 62 to 66% 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 301 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	26 / 15–28	26 / 16–28	25 / 19–28	24 / 21–29	24 / 20–29	23 / 19–29	22 / 18–29	23 / 19–30	24 / 20–29	24 / 21–28	24 / 19–28	25 / 17–28
Night °C	20 / 7–24	20 / 8–24	20 / 11–24	19 / 13–23	18 / 14–23	18 / 13–24	17 / 12–25	17 / 12–24	17 / 14–24	18 / 14–23	18 / 11–23	19 / 7–23
Rain mm	159 / 24–390	189 / 34–384	190 / 61–418	168 / 92–339	189 / 105–339	156 / 94–429	145 / 65–405	134 / 55–416	128 / 45–369	103 / 57–347	127 / 46–322	150 / 23–342
DLI	33 / 18–42	35 / 19–38	32 / 25–37	29 / 26–38	26 / 21–35	26 / 19–33	25 / 21–35	28 / 26–35	34 / 27–37	35 / 25–40	34 / 20–42	32 / 18–43
RH %	63 / 57–71	64 / 57–71	64 / 58–71	65 / 59–71	65 / 59–71	66 / 57–72	65 / 56–72	64 / 55–72	63 / 57–71	63 / 58–70	62 / 58–71	63 / 57–71

Each figure is the median across the 301 grid cells holding the 347 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 2228:6910 (-21.425, 165.525). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 13.0 °C, 1st-percentile night 14.6 °C, 99th-percentile day 28.6 °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 301 distinct grid cells holding the 347 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 2228:6910 (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 -21.50_165.625, lapse-corrected +305 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 443 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.

NativeChina South-Central, Hainan, China Southeast, Tibet, Japan, Nansei-shoto, Taiwan, Assam, Bangladesh, East Himalaya, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, West Himalaya, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Borneo, Jawa, Lesser Sunda Is., Malaya, Maluku, Philippines, Sulawesi, Sumatera, New Guinea, Solomon Is., New South Wales, Northern Territory, Queensland, Fiji, Niue, New Caledonia, Samoa, Tonga, Vanuatu, Wallis-Futuna Is., Cook Is.· introduced: Mauritius, Hawaii, Florida, Panama, Cuba, Jamaica, Puerto Rico

Kew's description“pseudobulbous geophyte” · “wet tropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here

Map marker-27.1, 153.2 · in the densest population, 135 records (28% of those in range)

Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 484 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 258 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 8 km away. 564 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 137 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 inside the densest 4° block of the 484 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Photographs: (c) Tara Severns, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Nick T., some rights reserved (CC BY-SA); (c) Kevin Anderson, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Kevin Faccenda, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) carnifex, some rights reserved (CC BY); no rights reserved · CC0 (2); (c) Will Sides, some rights reserved (CC BY).

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

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