Species
+

Fallugia paradoxa (D.Don ex Tilloch & Taylor) Endl. ex Torr.

Apache plume, Apache plume, apache-plume

Climate known 64 photographs
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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

Fallugia is a monotypic genus of flowering plants containing the single species Fallugia paradoxa, which is known by the common names Apache plume and póñil. This plant is native to the southwestern United States and northern Mexico, where it is found in arid habitats such as desert woodlands and scrub.

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

About the genus · Fallugia

Fallugia is a monotypic genus of flowering plants containing the single species Fallugia paradoxa, which is known by the common names Apache plume and póñil. This plant is native to the southwestern United States and northern Mexico, where it is found in arid habitats such as desert woodlands and scrub.

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

Family
Rosaceae
Described by
(D.Don ex Tilloch & Taylor) Endl. ex Torr.
Native to
Colorado, Oklahoma, Arizona +7
Wild records
1696 in range· 519 open

At a glance

Warmest month
30°C
Jul, mean day; nights 17 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
346mm/yr
5 wet months · peak Aug 59 mm (CHELSA)
Light
19–52DLI
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 rainy season, December to January, March and July to October in the northern hemisphere, at the year's mean temperature, so called neither winter nor summer. Habitat rain 346 mm a year, wettest August at 59 mm, driest May at 17 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 19 to 52 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -9.2 °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 Fallugia acuminata (Wooton) Cockerell; Fallugia acuminata Rydb.; Fallugia acuminata var. micrantha (Cockerell) Cockerell; Fallugia mexicana Walp.; Fallugia micrantha Cockerell and 7 more.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: a rainy season, December to January, March and July to October in the northern hemisphere, at the year's mean temperature, so called neither winter nor summer.

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

The rain rule reads a rainy season with no name: 70% of the year's rain (252 mm of 346 mm) falls in December to January, March and July to October, whose mean temperature, 13.1 °C, is within half a degree of the year's, 13.0 °C, so it is neither the cooler nor the warmer part of the year. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: January to April, June to July and 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 346 mm a year, wettest August at 59 mm, driest May at 17 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

346 mm a year at the habitat, 252 mm of it December to January, March and July to October. Wettest month August at 59 mm, driest May at 17 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 242 mm to 540 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: 19 to 52 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 19 to 52 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 16, the highest 90th-percentile month 55).

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 -9.2 °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 -9.2 °C, the absolute minimum -19.0 °C, about 101 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 38.2 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -3.0 °C in January (across the envelope cells -8.0 °C to 1.5 °C), warmest day 30.4 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -9.2 °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: 40 to 51% 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 Dec to 30 °C in Jul; mean night from -3 °C in Jan to 17 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 346 mm of rain a year, most in Aug. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 834 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -19.0 °C and the 99th-percentile day 38.2 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-20°-10°10°20°30°40°frost38.2° 99th-percentile day (undated)-19.0° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0255075100mm rainDLI 19–52RH 40–51 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 834 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 / 4–1411 / 6–1715 / 10–2120 / 15–2525 / 20–2930 / 25–3330 / 26–3429 / 25–3326 / 22–3020 / 16–2514 / 9–198 / 4–14
Night °C-3 / -8–2-2 / -7–31 / -3–65 / 0–1010 / 6–1515 / 11–1917 / 13–2117 / 12–2113 / 9–178 / 3–122 / -3–6-3 / -8–2
Rain mm21 / 13–4021 / 12–4525 / 12–4318 / 11–3917 / 8–5219 / 5–5353 / 19–9359 / 23–9738 / 18–6032 / 20–4419 / 13–3124 / 13–41
DLI22 / 18–2528 / 25–3137 / 34–4046 / 42–4850 / 47–5252 / 48–5547 / 44–5143 / 41–4638 / 36–4031 / 27–3323 / 20–2619 / 16–22
RH %51 / 47–5550 / 46–5447 / 42–5242 / 38–5041 / 36–5140 / 34–4947 / 38–5250 / 40–5448 / 40–5247 / 42–5148 / 44–5251 / 47–54

Each figure is the median across the 834 grid cells holding the 1589 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 1081:1368 (35.925, -111.575). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -19.0 °C, 1st-percentile night -9.2 °C, 99th-percentile day 38.2 °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 834 distinct grid cells holding the 1589 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1081:1368 (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 36.00_-111.875, lapse-corrected -275 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 1562 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.
NativeColorado, Oklahoma, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Texas, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Northwest
Kew's description“temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker35.19, -106.479 · in the densest population, 856 records (50% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1696 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 519 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 126 km away. 2 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 107 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 2° block of the 1696 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Fallugia paradoxaFallugia paradoxaFallugia paradoxaFallugia paradoxaFallugia paradoxaFallugia paradoxaFallugia paradoxaFallugia paradoxa

Photographs: no rights reserved · CC0; (c) Brian Finzel, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) (6); (c) Jay Pruett, some rights reserved (CC BY).

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

A New Anthraquinone and Cytotoxic Curvularins of a Penicillium sp. from the Rhizosphere of Fallugia paradoxa of the Sonoran Desert
Jixun Zhan, E. M. Kithsiri Wijeratne, Christopher J. Seliga, Jun Zhang (2004) · The Journal of Antibiotics
Mulch Effects on Crown Growth of Five Southwestern Shrub Species
Ann L. Hild, David L. Morgan (1993) · Journal of Environmental Horticulture
Establishment, Growth, Utilization and Chemical Composition of Introduced Shrubs on Oklahoma Tallgrass Prairie
N. D. Stidham, Jeff R. Powell, Fenton Gray, P. L. Claypool (1982) · Journal of Range Management
A Preliminary List of Bryophytes from the Organ Mountains, New Mexico
Lloyd R. Stark, Richard C. Castetter (1982) · The Bryologist
Lipophilic Exudate Constituents of Some Rosaceae from the Southwestern USA
Eckhard Wollenweber, Birgit Henrich, Karin Mann, James N. Roitman (1996) · Zeitschrift für Naturforschung C
Rooting depths of plants on low-level waste disposal sites
T.S. Foxx, G.D. Tierney, Jean Williams (1984) · OSTI OAI (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information)
Micrografting between N-Fixing and Non-N-Fixing Genera of the Rosaceae
N. E. Kyle, J. L. Jakobek, Ralph A. Backhaus, Jean C. Stutz (1986) · Botanical Gazette
A New Anthraquinone and Cytotoxic Curvularins of a Penicillium sp. from the Rhizosphere of Fallugia paradoxa of the Sonoran Desert.
Jixun Zhan, E. M. Kithsiri Wijeratne, Christopher J. Seliga, Jun Zhang (2004) · ChemInform
Survival of Intergeneric Micrografted Rosaceae
N. E. Kyle, Timothy L. Righetti (1988) · Botanical Gazette
Merging the Roles of Learning, Research, and Outreach in a Nursery Irrigation Exercise
Geno A. Picchioni, Jagtar Singh, John G. Mexal, Ryan M. Goss (2007) · HortTechnology

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 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (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 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not asked
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried 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 2026-09-19; 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.