8 photographs › At a glance
- Jan, shaded
- Feb, shaded
- Mar, shaded
- Apr
- May
- Jun, under 5 mm of rain
- Jul, under 5 mm of rain
- Aug, under 5 mm of rain
- Sep
- Oct
- Nov, shaded
- Dec, shaded
Summary
Cistus chinamadensis is a shrubby species of flowering plant in the family Cistaceae, with purple-pink flowers, first described in 1991. It is endemic to the Canary Islands, where three subspecies occur on three separate islands (Tenerife, La Gomera and El Hierro). The species has been assessed as endangered in the IUCN Red List, being known only from small separated areas and facing a variety of threats.
Quoted from Wikipedia, "Cistus chinamadensis", CC BY-SA 4.0.
About the genus · Cistus
Cistus is a genus of flowering plants in the rockrose family Cistaceae, containing about 34 species and a similar number of natural hybrids. They are perennial shrubs found on dry or rocky soils throughout the Mediterranean region, from Morocco, Spain, Italy, Greece, through to the Middle East, and also on the Canary Islands.
Quoted from Wikipedia, "Cistus", CC BY-SA 4.0.
Cultivation
Seasons
The rain rule reads a winter growing season: 70% of the median year's rain (310 mm of 384 mm) falls in November to March, cooler than the year (wet-season mean 15.7 °C against a yearly mean of 18.0 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: May to September.
Rain
384 mm in the median year at the habitat, 310 mm of it November to March. Wettest month December at 81 mm, driest month July at 0 mm; 3 months under 5 mm. Across the grid cells of the range the year's total runs 301 mm to 454 mm, the 10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year. The median of the cells' own yearly totals, 399 mm, is the year's rain at the top of the page; the 384 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: 22 to 50 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 20, the highest 90th-percentile month 51).
Warmth and air
Monthly means: the coldest month's mean nightly low 14.2 °C in February (across the grid cells of the range 12.6 °C to 17.2 °C), the warmest month's mean daily high 22.8 °C in August (median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). Cold floor: none read. The nearest figure is 14.2 °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: 50 to 61% 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.
Climate across the habitat
Habitat months, northern hemisphere
Mean daily high from 15 °C in Feb to 23 °C in Jul and Aug; mean nightly low from 14 °C in Jan and Feb to 22 °C in Jul and Aug. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest month's mean nightly low, centred on the 2 months in a row that tie for it. 384 mm of rain in the median year (the twelve monthly medians added), the wettest month Dec. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 10 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 | 16 / 14–19 | 15 / 14–18 | 16 / 14–19 | 16 / 15–19 | 18 / 17–20 | 21 / 20–21 | 23 / 22–23 | 23 / 23–23 | 22 / 21–23 | 20 / 19–23 | 18 / 17–21 | 17 / 15–20 |
| Night °C | 14 / 13–17 | 14 / 13–17 | 15 / 13–17 | 15 / 14–18 | 17 / 16–19 | 20 / 19–20 | 22 / 21–22 | 22 / 22–22 | 21 / 20–22 | 19 / 18–22 | 17 / 15–20 | 16 / 14–19 |
| Rain mm | 52 / 38–59 | 60 / 45–67 | 47 / 34–53 | 21 / 15–23 | 6 / 4–8 | 1 / 1–3 | 0 / 0–1 | 2 / 1–2 | 7 / 5–8 | 37 / 27–43 | 70 / 55–77 | 81 / 71–113 |
| DLI | 24 / 22–26 | 30 / 28–32 | 38 / 37–40 | 44 / 43–45 | 48 / 47–49 | 50 / 50–51 | 50 / 49–50 | 46 / 45–46 | 40 / 39–41 | 32 / 31–34 | 25 / 23–27 | 22 / 20–24 |
| RH % | 59 / 54–60 | 58 / 53–62 | 57 / 51–62 | 59 / 54–63 | 61 / 53–63 | 59 / 48–65 | 50 / 39–65 | 52 / 41–65 | 59 / 50–66 | 61 / 56–64 | 60 / 56–61 | 60 / 58–63 |
The daily extremes were read at a NASA POWER cell that is 36% 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 9.9 °C, 1st-percentile night 11.5 °C, 99th-percentile day 23.5 °C.
How this section is made
Natural habitat
How this section is made
Photographs
Photographs: (c) Daniel Heras González, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3); (c) Diego Rodríguez Hernández, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3).
Related
Similar habitat climate The 6 nearest by mean daily high, mean nightly low and rain, month by month. How.
Aeonium rubrolineatum Crassulaceae Photo: CC BY, Connor Connolly-Moyls
Echium acanthocarpum Blue bugloss Photo: CC BY, Ismael Medina Rodríguez Monanthes icterica Crassulaceae 
Limonium redivivum Plumbaginaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, Rüdiger Kratz, St. Ingbert
Argyranthemum callichrysum Asteraceae Photo: CC0, author not stated
Aeonium gomerense Crassulaceae Photo: CC BY, Javier Sánchez ÁlvarezOther Cistus 29 in the reference
Cistus albidus Grey-leaved Cistus Photo: CC BY, zebedeugalinha Cistus atriplicifolius Cistaceae 
Cistus calycinus Cistaceae Photo: CC BY-SA, Krzysztof Ziarnek, Kenraiz
Cistus clusii Cistaceae Photo: CC BY, Marc Riera
Cistus creticus Pink rockrose Photo: CC BY, tylototriton
Cistus crispus Curly rockrose Photo: CC BY-SA, Andy Mabbett
Cistus × florentinus Cistaceae Photo: CC BY, Diego González Dopico Cistus halimifolius Cistaceae 
Cistus heterophyllus Cistaceae Photo: CC BY, Abdenour Kheloufi
Cistus × hybridus Cistaceae Photo: CC BY, Duarte Frade
Cistus × incanus Hoary Rock-rose Photo: CC BY, Roberto Daniel Avila all 30 ›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 28.50_-16.250, lapse-corrected +444 m at 6.5 °C/km; read, and set aside: NASA POWER's cell is mostly sea (36% land), so no cold floor is shownwikidata answeredasked 2026-10-21wikipedia 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 2026-10-21none 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 rulescommons nothing to reportasked 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 9 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.