Ceropegia distincta, eThekwini, ZA-NL, ZA

Ceropegia distincta N.E.Br.

Apocynaceae

Climate known 24 photographs Cactus or succulent

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 · Ceropegia

Ceropegia is a genus of plants within the family Apocynaceae, native to Africa, southern Asia, and Australia. It was named by Carl Linnaeus, who first described this genus in his Genera plantarum, which appeared in 1737. Linnaeus referred to the description and picture of a plant in the Horti Malabarici as the plant for which the genus was created. More on Wikipedia ›

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

Family

Apocynaceae

Described by

N.E.Br.

Native to

Kenya, Tanzania

Wild records

15 in range· 15 open

At a glance

Warmest month

30°C

Feb, mean day; nights 21 °C (CHELSA)

Rain

930mm/yr

8 wet months · peak Apr 173 mm (CHELSA)

Light

30–41DLI

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 Ceropegia, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a sharp rainy season, November to January and March to May at the habitat (not shifted); the temperature curve is flat (3.9 °C of range), so no growing season is inferred. Habitat rain 930 mm a year, wettest April at 173 mm, driest July at 15 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 30 to 41 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 14.1 °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 Ceropegia cyrtoidea Werderm.; Ceropegia distincta subsp. distincta.

Cultivation

Grouped as a cactus or succulent by the genus Ceropegia, 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 sharp rainy season, November to January and March to May at the habitat (not shifted); the temperature curve is flat (3.9 °C of range), so no growing season is inferred.

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

The rain rule reads a sharp season: 70% of the year's rain (725 mm of 930 mm) falls in November to January and March to May. The temperature curve is flat, 3.9 °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, southern hemisphere, within 10° of the equator; with no thermal season there 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 930 mm a year, wettest April at 173 mm, driest July at 15 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

930 mm a year at the habitat, 725 mm of it November to January and March to May. Wettest month April at 173 mm, driest July at 15 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 690 mm to 1229 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 41 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 30 to 41 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 28, the highest 90th-percentile month 44).

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 14.1 °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 14.1 °C, the absolute minimum 11.7 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 34.8 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 16.8 °C in July (across the envelope cells 13.5 °C to 20.9 °C), warmest day 30.1 °C in February (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 14.1 °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 69% 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 14 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	30 / 27–31	30 / 27–31	29 / 27–30	27 / 26–29	28 / 25–28	27 / 24–27	26 / 24–27	27 / 24–28	28 / 26–29	29 / 27–30	30 / 27–31	30 / 27–30
Night °C	21 / 18–24	21 / 18–24	21 / 19–24	21 / 18–23	19 / 17–23	17 / 15–22	17 / 14–21	17 / 14–21	18 / 15–21	19 / 16–22	20 / 18–23	21 / 18–24
Rain mm	84 / 65–211	79 / 44–220	160 / 114–237	173 / 89–274	90 / 19–182	22 / 3–45	15 / 1–23	17 / 2–28	17 / 2–25	55 / 9–80	91 / 37–150	127 / 114–169
DLI	39 / 35–40	41 / 34–42	37 / 33–40	32 / 30–35	30 / 28–34	31 / 29–33	31 / 29–34	33 / 30–37	38 / 35–42	40 / 37–44	40 / 37–43	38 / 37–40
RH %	65 / 61–69	64 / 60–69	67 / 62–72	69 / 63–71	65 / 60–70	62 / 57–66	60 / 56–65	61 / 56–65	62 / 55–64	63 / 56–65	65 / 58–68	66 / 61–68

Each figure is the median across the 14 grid cells holding the 15 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 2003:4386 (-10.175, 39.325). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 11.7 °C, 1st-percentile night 14.1 °C, 99th-percentile day 34.8 °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 14 distinct grid cells holding the 15 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 2003:4386 (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 -10.00_39.375, lapse-corrected +123 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 389 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.

NativeKenya, Tanzania

Kew's description“semisucculent climber” · “seasonally dry tropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here

Map marker-6.9, 39.083 · in the densest population, 9 records (60% of those in range)

Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 15 georeferenced records inside the native range, all openly licensed and shown on the map. 8 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 2° block of the 15 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Photographs: (c) Sunčana Bradley, some rights reserved (CC BY) (4); (c) Suvarna Parbhoo Mohan, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) (4).

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

Ceropegia distincta (Asclepiadaceae) and Some Related Species in Tropical East and Southern Africa

D. V. Field (1981) · Kew Bulletin

Ceropegia distincta N. E. Br.

Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (2026) · DiSSCo

Ceropegia distincta N. E. Br.

Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (2026)

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