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Crotalaria incana; photograph author not stated, no rights reserved CC0author not stated, no rights reserved · observed growing wild · 2026-09-11

Crotalaria incana L.

Shakeshake; Silver rattlepod; Small Yellow Popbush; Snake Bush

Fabaceae · Nigeria, Burundi +59

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Crotalaria incana, photograph (c) Kevin Faccenda, some rights reserved (CC BY)Crotalaria incana, photograph (c) Luis Ángel Niño Barreat, some rights reserved (CC BY)Crotalaria incana, photograph (c) Luis Ángel Niño Barreat, some rights reserved (CC BY)Crotalaria incana, photograph (c) Mike Butler, some rights reserved (CC BY)Crotalaria incana, photograph (c) Mike Butler, some rights reserved (CC BY)Crotalaria incana, photograph (c) Mike Butler, some rights reserved (CC BY) 74 photographs ›
Habitat figures
Cold floor (1 night in 100)
13.6°C
Record low 11.5 °C in 44 years, at a typical spot in the range NASA POWER
Warmest month, mean daily high
29°C
May and Jun at the habitat CHELSA
Rain a year (median across the range)
1,283mm
12 months of 25 mm or more in the median year CHELSA
Open-sky light
26–40DLI
Lowest to highest month (DLI) CHELSA
The year in your months, northern hemisphere
  1. Jan
  2. Feb
  3. Mar
  4. Apr
  5. May
  6. Jun
  7. Jul
  8. Aug
  9. Sep
  10. Oct
  11. Nov
  12. Dec
Wet summers: the rain comes June to October, read as a summer growing season. rain rule, CHELSA
Northern hemisphere unless you set your site. The chart is in the habitat's months.

Summary

Crotalaria incana is a species of flowering plant in the Fabaceae family known by various names including shake-shake, velvety rattlebox, silver rattlepod, and woolly rattlepod.

Quoted from Wikipedia, "Crotalaria incana", CC BY-SA 4.0.

About the genus · Crotalaria

Crotalaria is a genus of flowering plants in the family Fabaceae commonly known as rattlepods. The genus includes over 700 species of herbaceous plants and shrubs. Africa is the continent with the majority of Crotalaria species, which are mainly found in damp grassland, especially in floodplains, depressions and along edges of swamps and rivers, but also in deciduous bush land, roadsides and fields. More on Wikipedia ›

Quoted from Wikipedia, "Crotalaria", CC BY-SA 4.0.

Cultivation

Seasons

The rain rule reads a summer growing season: 70% of the median year's rain (870 mm of 1,217 mm) falls in June to October, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 24.9 °C against a yearly mean of 23.3 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: December to April.

Rain

1,217 mm in the median year at the habitat, 870 mm of it June to October. Wettest month September at 210 mm, driest month March at 33 mm. Across the grid cells of the range the year's total runs 734 mm to 2,587 mm, the 10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year. The median of the cells' own yearly totals, 1,283 mm, is the year's rain at the top of the page; the 1,217 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: 26 to 40 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 21, the highest 90th-percentile month 47).

Warmth and air
Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at a typical spot in the range is 13.6 °C, the absolute minimum 11.5 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 32.8 °C. Monthly means: the coldest month's mean nightly low 16.2 °C in January (across the grid cells of the range 9.5 °C to 21.6 °C), the warmest month's mean daily high 29.1 °C in May (median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). Cold floor: 13.6 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at a typical spot in the range (NASA POWER).

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 60 to 66% 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. NASA POWER daily minima and maxima over 44 years at a typical spot in the range, lapse-corrected -160 m to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the grid cells of the range. The cold floor is the 1st-percentile night named in its sentence. 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

Habitat climate of Crotalaria incana through the yearWarmest months May and June, mean daily high 29 °C; coldest month January, mean nightly low 16.2 °C; 1,217 mm of rain in the median year (the twelve monthly medians added). Medians across the range, from CHELSA; the extremes at the edge from NASA POWER. Habitat months, northern hemisphere.5°10°15°20°25°30°35°32.8° 99th-percentile day, NASA POWER11.5° lowest night in 44 years, NASA POWER°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400mm rainDLI 26–40RH 60–66%JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain medians and 10th–90th percentile across 305 habitat cells, CHELSA cold quarter: the three months around the coldest month's mean nightly low extremes over 44 years at a typical spot in the range, from NASA POWER, marked at the edge, in no month DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C24 / 20–2825 / 21–2927 / 23–3128 / 23–3329 / 23–3429 / 23–3328 / 22–3228 / 22–3228 / 22–3127 / 22–3026 / 21–2925 / 20–28
Night °C16 / 10–2217 / 10–2218 / 12–2220 / 13–2321 / 14–2522 / 14–2521 / 13–2521 / 13–2521 / 13–2520 / 13–2418 / 12–2317 / 10–22
Rain mm39 / 14–12234 / 9–12033 / 5–16748 / 6–24590 / 19–262171 / 32–281176 / 47–338179 / 60–325210 / 87–353134 / 54–31657 / 17–23846 / 9–164
DLI28 / 22–3532 / 26–3936 / 31–4340 / 31–4740 / 29–4737 / 30–4337 / 31–4237 / 32–4133 / 30–3831 / 28–3628 / 24–3426 / 21–34
RH %62 / 53–6861 / 53–6860 / 52–6761 / 52–6862 / 54–6964 / 58–6965 / 59–7065 / 59–7066 / 60–7164 / 58–7063 / 57–6962 / 55–69

Records on both sides of the equator: the 91 cells at least 10° south of it have seasons six months apart and are left out, not combined into a year no place has. These figures are across the 305 cells that remain: the 233 at least 10° north and the 72 within 10° of the equator, which stay in either way.

How this section is made
Each figure is the median across the 305 grid cells on land that hold in-range records (341 records in those cells; 4 more cells hold records but no land by the elevation layer, so those records sit at sea and the cells are left out), with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. A dash is a month one or more of those cells has no figure for in the grid (a variable CHELSA does not carry there), so no median is taken rather than one over fewer cells. Extremes and elevation were read at a typical spot in the range, cell 1810:4218 (-0.525, 30.925). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 11.5 °C, 1st-percentile night 13.6 °C, 99th-percentile day 32.8 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Across the range: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 305 distinct grid cells holding 341 of the 437 in-range records (4 further cells with records at sea, by the elevation layer, left out) on the northern side of the equator (233 cells poleward of 10° north, 91 poleward of 10° south: the two sides' seasons are not combined, and cells within 10° of the equator stay in); extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1810:4218 (its coldest month's mean nightly low nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell -0.50_30.625, lapse-corrected -160 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 1290 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 the cells of the in-range records placed well enough to read one, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeNigeria, Burundi, Cameroon, Rwanda, Zaïre, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Madagascar, Yemen, India, Mexico Central, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southwest, Mexico Southeast, Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Aruba, Bahamas, Cayman Is., Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Jamaica, Leeward Is. AB Ant, Netherlands Antilles, Puerto Rico, Trinidad-Tobago, Venezuelan Antilles, Windward Is., Guyana, Venezuela, Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Galápagos, Peru, Brazil West-Central, Brazil Northeast, Brazil Southeast, Brazil North, Brazil South, Argentina Northeast, Argentina Northwest, Chile Central, Chile North, Paraguay, Uruguay · introduced: Chad, Somalia, Mauritius, China South-Central, China Southeast, Taiwan, Assam, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, West Himalaya, Thailand, Vietnam, Jawa, Malaya, Maluku, Philippines, Sumatera, New Guinea, Solomon Is., New South Wales, Northern Territory, Queensland, Western Australia, Fiji, New Caledonia, Samoa, Vanuatu, Line Is., Society Is., Caroline Is., Marshall Is., Hawaii, Texas, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Mexican Pacific Is., Costa Rica · regions are the level-3 units of the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions, as Kew's World Checklist records ranges, some under historical names such as Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia (how).
Map marker19.54, -96.704 · in the densest population, 146 records (12% of those in range)
Kew's description“annual, perennial or subshrub” · “seasonally dry tropical” · quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Evidence usedThe map marker rests on all 1241 georeferenced records inside the native range; the climate across the range on the 341 of them in the land cells it reads, of 437 placed to within 10 km; the map shows only the 1099 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker in the same place. 341 records outside the WCVP native range not used. 804 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km, or with no stated accuracy (admitted only as a person's observation to three decimals), and stay on the map but off the climate.
How this section is made
The map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population of the 1241 in-range records; it decides nothing. Records outside the native range, living specimens and records marked introduced are not used; which records count.

Photographs

Crotalaria incana, photograph 1did not loadCrotalaria incana, photograph 2did not loadCrotalaria incana, photograph 3did not loadCrotalaria incana, photograph 4did not loadCrotalaria incana, photograph 5did not loadCrotalaria incana, photograph 6did not load

Photographs: (c) Kevin Faccenda, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Luis Ángel Niño Barreat, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) Mike Butler, some rights reserved (CC BY) (3).

Similar habitat climate The 6 nearest by mean daily high, mean nightly low and rain, month by month. How.

Digitaria insularis Digitaria insularis Sourgrass Photo: CC0, author not statedSchoepfia schreberi Schoepfia schreberi Gulf graytwig Photo: CC BY, Neptalí Ramírez MarcialTriumfetta semitriloba Triumfetta semitriloba Wild Maho Photo: CC BY, Brynn FrickeGomphrena globosa Gomphrena globosa Common globe amaranth Photo: CC BY, er-birdsCallisia fragrans Callisia fragrans Basketplant Photo: CC0, author not statedDiospyros nigra Diospyros nigra Ebenaceae Photo: CC BY, nasua

Other Crotalaria 26 in the reference

Crotalaria agatiflora Crotalaria agatiflora Canarybird-bush Photo: CC BY, Efrain FreireCrotalaria calycina Crotalaria calycina Hairy Rattlepod Photo: CC0, author not statedCrotalaria capensis Crotalaria capensis Cape Rattle-Pod Photo: CC BY, jeanjacquesgodonCrotalaria cunninghamii Crotalaria cunninghamii Parrot pea Photo: CC BY, Hugo InnesCrotalaria eremaea Crotalaria eremaea Bluebush pea Photo: CC BY, Petra HollandCrotalaria juncea Crotalaria juncea Sunn hemp Photo: CC BY, Nick DotyCrotalaria lanceolata Crotalaria lanceolata Lanceleaf rattlebox Photo: CC BY, carterCrotalaria longirostrata Crotalaria longirostrata Longbeak rattlebox Photo: CC BY, Alexis López HernándezCrotalaria maypurensis Crotalaria maypurensis Fabaceae Photo: CC0, author not statedCrotalaria medicaginea Crotalaria medicaginea Trefoil rattlepod Photo: CC BY, Petra HollandCrotalaria micans Crotalaria micans Caracas rattlebox Photo: CC BY, Robin WhiteCrotalaria mitchellii Crotalaria mitchellii Yellow rattlepod Photo: CC BY-SA, Greg Tasney all 27 ›

Names & registers

Also known as Crotalaria criocaula; Crotalaria cytisifolia; Crotalaria pubescens; Crotalaria pubesens. (GBIF Backbone)

GBIFPOWOIPNIWFOWikidataWikipediaiNaturalist

The record

Family
Fabaceae
Described by
L.
Native to
Nigeria, Burundi, Cameroon +58
Wild records
1241 in range · 1099 open

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 2026-10-22
GBIF species record gbif.species answeredasked 2026-10-22
GBIF synonyms gbif.synonyms answeredasked 2026-10-22
GBIF common names gbif.vernacular answeredasked 2026-10-22names fetched 2026-10-22
WCVP native range wcvp.distribution answeredas of 2026-06-04
GBIF occurrence records gbif.occurrences answeredas of 2026-10-21GBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.hbdw64, of 2026-10-21; 29 records within 1 km of a botanic garden, herbarium or zoo left out (16 at a botanic garden or arboretum, 7 at a herbarium, 6 at a zoo; Wikidata's list)
Habitat climate climate answeredasked 2026-10-22
Daily extremes (NASA POWER) climate.extremes answeredasked 2026-10-22NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell -0.50_30.625, lapse-corrected -160 m at 6.5 °C/km
Wikidata wikidata answeredasked 2026-10-22
Wikipedia wikipedia answeredasked 2026-10-22
iNaturalist photographs, wild inat.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 2026-10-22
iNaturalist photographs, cultivated inat.photos.cultivated not asked
GBIF media gbif.media answeredasked 2026-10-22
OpenAlex papers openalex not askednot yet asked for this reference; a later fill takes the papers from OpenAlex's snapshot

Every 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 209 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.

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