Species
+

Chimonanthus praecox (L.) Link

Japanese allspice, Japanese-allspice, Wax ume, la mei

Climate known 34 photographs
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.

Summary

Chimonanthus praecox, also known as wintersweet and Japanese allspice, is a species of flowering plant in the genus Chimonanthus of the family Calycanthaceae. The plant is native to China and is known as làméi in Chinese. It is also grown in Iran, where it is called gol-e yakh or "ice flower" in Persian.

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

About the genus · Chimonanthus

Chimonanthus is a genus of flowering plants in the family Calycanthaceae, native to China, but is also cultivated elsewhere in Asia, including Iran. The genus includes three to six species depending on taxonomic interpretation; six are accepted by the Flora of China. The name means winter flower in Greek.

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

Family
Calycanthaceae
Described by
(L.) Link
Native to
China South-Central, China North-Central, China Southeast
Wild records
209 in range· 70 open

At a glance

Warmest month
31°C
Jul, mean day; nights 23 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
1199mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Jun 201 mm (CHELSA)
Light
16–33DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Rain rule: a summer growing season, April to September in the northern hemisphere (April to September at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 1199 mm a year, wettest June at 201 mm, driest December at 27 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 16 to 33 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -3.0 °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 Beureria praecox (L.) Kuntze; Butneria praecox (L.) C.K.Schneid.; Calycanthus praecox L.; Calycanthus suaveolens Salisb.; Chimonanthus baokanensis D.M.Chen & Z.L.Dai and 24 more.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: a summer growing season, April to September in the northern hemisphere (April to September at the habitat, northern).

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 (904 mm of 1199 mm) falls in April to September, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 23.2 °C against a yearly mean of 16.4 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: October to March.

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 1199 mm a year, wettest June at 201 mm, driest December at 27 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1199 mm a year at the habitat, 904 mm of it April to September. Wettest month June at 201 mm, driest December at 27 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 646 mm to 1976 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern 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: 16 to 33 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 16 to 33 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 12, the highest 90th-percentile month 38).

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 -3.0 °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 -3.0 °C, the absolute minimum -5.8 °C, about 26 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 31.9 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 0.3 °C in January (across the envelope cells -5.0 °C to 4.4 °C), warmest day 30.9 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -3.0 °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: 58 to 63% 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 8 °C in Jan to 31 °C in Jul; mean night from 0 °C in Jan to 23 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 1199 mm of rain a year, most in Jun. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 184 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -5.8 °C and the 99th-percentile day 31.9 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-10°10°20°30°40°frost31.9° 99th-percentile day (undated)-5.8° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400mm rainDLI 16–33RH 58–63 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 184 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 °C8 / 4–1310 / 6–1415 / 12–1821 / 18–2325 / 22–2728 / 25–3031 / 26–3330 / 26–3226 / 23–2921 / 18–2516 / 12–1910 / 6–14
Night °C0 / -5–42 / -3–66 / 1–911 / 8–1516 / 13–1921 / 17–2323 / 19–2623 / 19–2519 / 15–2214 / 9–168 / 2–112 / -3–6
Rain mm33 / 6–8838 / 11–11567 / 21–171100 / 32–225141 / 57–264201 / 77–321200 / 131–273160 / 125–235102 / 74–16378 / 40–11052 / 17–8527 / 6–53
DLI17 / 13–1919 / 14–2422 / 17–3028 / 22–3631 / 26–3831 / 27–3833 / 30–3631 / 29–3326 / 22–2922 / 16–2418 / 13–2016 / 12–18
RH %59 / 53–6560 / 53–6660 / 52–6660 / 52–6561 / 53–6463 / 55–6663 / 59–6763 / 60–6662 / 59–6460 / 56–6559 / 55–6458 / 54–64

Each figure is the median across the 184 grid cells holding the 203 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 1210:5667 (29.475, 103.375). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -5.8 °C, 1st-percentile night -3.0 °C, 99th-percentile day 31.9 °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 184 distinct grid cells holding the 203 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1210:5667 (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 29.50_103.125, lapse-corrected -378 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 1014 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, China North-Central, China Southeast
Kew's description“shrub” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker33.03, 108.24 · in the densest population, 119 records (57% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 209 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 70 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 105 km away. 157 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 6 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 209 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Chimonanthus praecoxChimonanthus praecoxChimonanthus praecoxChimonanthus praecoxChimonanthus praecoxChimonanthus praecoxChimonanthus praecoxChimonanthus praecox

Photographs: (c) Se Lena, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) Kim, Hyun-tae, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Marco Mussita, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3); (c) Timur Kalininsky, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2).

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

Two new tryptamine-derived alkaloids from Chimonanthus praecox f. concolor
Mariko Kitajima, Ikue Mori, Kazumichi Arai, Noriyuki Kogure (2006) · Tetrahedron Letters
CpWRKY71, a WRKY Transcription Factor Gene of Wintersweet (Chimonanthus praecox), Promotes Flowering and Leaf Senescence in Arabidopsis
Renwei Huang, Daofeng Liu, Min Huang, Jing Ma (2019) · International Journal of Molecular Sciences
Comparative photosynthesis characteristics of Calycanthus chinensis and Chimonanthus praecox
Linchun Mao, Hongfei Lü, Q. Wang, Meilan Cai (2007) · Photosynthetica
Antifungal Activity of Alkaloids from the Seeds of Chimonanthus praecox
Jiwen Zhang, Jin‐Ming Gao, Tian Xu, Xingchang Zhang (2009) · Chemistry & Biodiversity
Genetic Diversity and Discrimination of Chimonanthus praecox (L.) Link Germplasm Using ISSR and RAPD Markers
Kaige Zhao, Mingqin Zhou, Long‐Qing Chen, Donglin Zhang (2007) · HortScience
Transcriptomic Analysis of Flower Development in Wintersweet (Chimonanthus praecox)
Daofeng Liu, Shunzhao Sui, Jing Ma, Zhineng Li (2014) · PLoS ONE

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.

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 answeredcarried 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 not askedcarried 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 71 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.