Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, CC BY, via GBIF · observed growing wild

Commiphora serrata Engl.

Burseraceae

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 · Commiphora

Commiphora is the most species-rich genus of flowering plants in the frankincense and myrrh family, Burseraceae. The genus contains approximately 190 species of shrubs and trees, which are distributed throughout the (sub-) tropical regions of Africa, the western Indian Ocean islands, the Arabian Peninsula, India, and South America. The genus is drought-tolerant and common throughout the xerophytic scrub, seasonally dry tropical forests, and woodlands of these regions.

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

Family

Burseraceae

Described by

Engl.

Native to

Tanzania, Mozambique

Wild records

37 in range· 27 open

At a glance

Warmest month

31°C

Nov, mean day; nights 22 °C (CHELSA)

Rain

1059mm/yr

8 wet months · peak Jan 222 mm (CHELSA)

Light

29–41DLI

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 Commiphora, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a summer growing season, June to September in the northern hemisphere (December to March at the habitat, southern). Habitat rain 1059 mm a year, wettest January at 222 mm, driest September at 8 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 29 to 41 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 14.9 °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 Commiphora serrata subsp. multipinnata Engl.; Commiphora serrata var. multipinnata Engl.

Cultivation

Grouped as a cactus or succulent by the genus Commiphora, 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 summer growing season, June to September in the northern hemisphere (December to March at the habitat, southern).

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 (790 mm of 1059 mm) falls in December to March, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 26.3 °C against a yearly mean of 24.8 °C). Months are the habitat's, southern hemisphere; shifted six months for a northern-hemisphere collection: June to September.

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 1059 mm a year, wettest January at 222 mm, driest September at 8 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1059 mm a year at the habitat, 790 mm of it December to March. Wettest month January at 222 mm, driest September at 8 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 925 mm to 1275 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: 29 to 41 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 29 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 25, 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 14.9 °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 14.9 °C, the absolute minimum 12.6 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 37.6 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 17.9 °C in July (across the envelope cells 13.9 °C to 21.6 °C), warmest day 31.1 °C in November (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 14.9 °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 67% 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 35 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 / 29–31	29 / 29–31	29 / 28–30	28 / 27–29	28 / 26–29	27 / 25–28	26 / 24–28	27 / 26–29	29 / 27–30	30 / 28–32	31 / 29–33	31 / 29–32
Night °C	23 / 21–25	23 / 21–25	23 / 20–25	22 / 19–25	20 / 16–24	19 / 14–22	18 / 14–22	18 / 15–22	19 / 17–22	21 / 18–23	22 / 20–25	23 / 21–25
Rain mm	222 / 144–284	214 / 164–253	195 / 174–221	99 / 72–154	38 / 19–55	18 / 7–44	15 / 5–30	13 / 4–24	8 / 4–21	25 / 13–56	53 / 42–99	159 / 120–230
DLI	37 / 34–39	36 / 34–39	34 / 33–37	33 / 31–34	31 / 28–33	29 / 25–31	29 / 25–32	33 / 30–35	38 / 36–40	41 / 38–43	41 / 40–44	38 / 37–41
RH %	66 / 63–68	66 / 64–69	67 / 64–70	65 / 62–67	62 / 59–64	60 / 57–61	60 / 56–61	60 / 56–62	60 / 55–63	60 / 55–64	61 / 58–65	64 / 62–67

Each figure is the median across the 35 grid cells holding the 37 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 2053:4400 (-12.675, 40.025). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 12.6 °C, 1st-percentile night 14.9 °C, 99th-percentile day 37.6 °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 35 distinct grid cells holding the 37 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 2053:4400 (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 -12.50_40.000, lapse-corrected -38 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 154 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.

NativeTanzania, Mozambique

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

Map marker-11.433, 40.183 · in the densest population, 22 records (59% of those in range)

Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 37 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 27 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 10 km away. 1 record 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 37 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Photographs: Meise Botanic Garden, CC BY, via GBIF; Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, CC BY, via GBIF (7).

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

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