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Fatoua villosa; photograph (c) WATANABE Hitoshi 渡辺仁, some rights reserved (CC BY) CC BY(c) WATANABE Hitoshi 渡辺仁, some rights reserved (CC BY) · observed growing wild · 2026-09-23

Fatoua villosa (Thunb.) Nakai

Hairy crabweed; Mulberry weed

Moraceae · China South-Central, Hainan +21

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Fatoua villosa, photograph (c) Texas Bird Family, some rights reserved (CC BY)Fatoua villosa, photograph (c) lejones417, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA)Fatoua villosa, photograph (c) lejones417, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA)Fatoua villosa, photograph (c) Texas Bird Family, some rights reserved (CC BY)Fatoua villosa, photograph (c) Tim Wasserman, some rights reserved (CC BY)Fatoua villosa, photograph (c) Tim Wasserman, some rights reserved (CC BY) 71 photographs ›
Habitat figures
Cold floor (1 night in 100)
0.7°C
Record low -4.9 °C in 44 years, at a typical spot in the range NASA POWER
Warmest month, mean daily high
28°C
Jul and Aug at the habitat CHELSA
Rain a year (median across the range)
1,628mm
12 months of 25 mm or more in the median year CHELSA
Open-sky light
17–34DLI
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 March to September, 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

Fatoua villosa is an annual herb in the Moraceae (mulberry) family. Common names include mulberry weed, crabweed, or hairy crabweed in English, kuwakusa (クワクサ; 桑草) in Japanese, and shuǐ shémá (水蛇麻) or xiǎo shémá (小蛇麻) in Mandarin. It is native to Eastern Asia, some Pacific islands, and parts of Australia, including in two Australian states (Western Australia and Queensland), the Bismarck Archipelago, China, Indonesia (Java, Maluku, Sulawesi and the Lesser Sunda Islands), Japan, Korea, New Guinea, the Philippines, the Solomon Islands, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. It has become an invasive species in the United States where it grows in disturbed areas such as flowerbeds, greenhouses, and agricultural fields.

Quoted from Wikipedia, "Fatoua villosa", CC BY-SA 4.0.

Cultivation

Seasons

The rain rule reads a summer growing season: 70% of the median year's rain (1,269 mm of 1,644 mm) falls in March to September, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 20.1 °C against a yearly mean of 16.6 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: September to March.

Rain

1,644 mm in the median year at the habitat, 1,269 mm of it March to September. Wettest month July at 263 mm, driest month December at 56 mm. Across the grid cells of the range the year's total runs 1,158 mm to 3,103 mm, the 10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year. The median of the cells' own yearly totals, 1,628 mm, is the year's rain at the top of the page; the 1,644 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: 17 to 34 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 15, the highest 90th-percentile month 43).

Warmth and air
Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at a typical spot in the range is 0.7 °C, the absolute minimum -4.9 °C, 90 frost nights in 44 years, 2.0 a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 31.8 °C. Monthly means: the coldest month's mean nightly low 3.9 °C in January (across the grid cells of the range -9.3 °C to 24.6 °C), the warmest month's mean daily high 28.2 °C in August (median year across the grid cells of the range, CHELSA). Cold floor: 0.7 °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: 59 to 65% 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 -206 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 Fatoua villosa through the yearWarmest months July and August, mean daily high 28 °C; coldest month January, mean nightly low 3.9 °C; 1,644 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.-20°-10°0°10°20°30°40°frost31.8° 99th-percentile day, NASA POWER-4.9° lowest night in 44 years, NASA POWER°C · day and nightcold quarter0100200300400500mm rainDLI 17–34RH 59–65%JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain medians and 10th–90th percentile across 176 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 °C10 / 1–2911 / 3–2914 / 8–2919 / 15–2922 / 19–2926 / 21–2928 / 24–3028 / 24–3125 / 22–3021 / 17–2917 / 10–2912 / 3–29
Night °C4 / -9–254 / -7–257 / -2–2511 / 4–2515 / 10–2518 / 13–2521 / 15–2522 / 16–2519 / 14–2516 / 8–2511 / 1–256 / -6–25
Rain mm63 / 24–26794 / 32–263126 / 52–223126 / 69–213137 / 76–304174 / 41–394263 / 29–411251 / 16–407192 / 16–41682 / 33–21380 / 41–26056 / 21–258
DLI19 / 16–3823 / 20–3629 / 25–3634 / 28–3634 / 29–3733 / 28–3531 / 27–3732 / 28–3728 / 25–4124 / 21–4319 / 16–4317 / 15–41
RH %60 / 54–6660 / 54–6659 / 55–6659 / 54–6661 / 56–6664 / 57–6765 / 55–6965 / 55–6863 / 56–6761 / 56–6660 / 55–6659 / 54–67
How this section is made
Each figure is the median across the 176 grid cells on land that hold in-range records (216 records in those cells; 2 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 1129:6278 (33.525, 133.925). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -4.9 °C, 1st-percentile night 0.7 °C, 99th-percentile day 31.8 °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 176 distinct grid cells holding 216 of the 218 in-range records (2 further cells with records at sea, by the elevation layer, left out); extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1129:6278 (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 33.50_133.750, lapse-corrected -206 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 100 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.
NativeChina South-Central, Hainan, China Southeast, Japan, Korea, Nansei-shoto, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, Borneo, Jawa, Lesser Sunda Is., Malaya, Maluku, Philippines, Sulawesi, Sumatera, Bismarck Archipelago, New Guinea, Solomon Is., Northern Territory, Queensland, Western Australia · introduced: Sardegna, China North-Central, New Caledonia, Illinois, Missouri, Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, West Virginia, Texas, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Bahamas, Puerto Rico · 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 marker35.613, 139.44 · in the densest population, 161 records (28% of those in range)
Kew's description“annual” · “subtropical” · quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Evidence usedThe map marker rests on all 567 georeferenced records inside the native range; the climate across the range on the 216 of them in the land cells it reads, of 218 placed to within 10 km; the map shows only the 388 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 1 km away. 1139 records outside the WCVP native range not used. 349 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 567 in-range records; it decides nothing. Records outside the native range, living specimens and records marked introduced are not used; which records count.

Photographs

Fatoua villosa, photograph 1did not loadFatoua villosa, photograph 2did not loadFatoua villosa, photograph 3did not loadFatoua villosa, photograph 4did not loadFatoua villosa, photograph 5did not loadFatoua villosa, photograph 6did not load

Photographs: (c) Texas Bird Family, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) lejones417, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) (2); (c) Tim Wasserman, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2).

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

Perilla frutescens Perilla frutescens Beefsteak plant Photo: CC BY, Andrew ConboyLepisorus thunbergianus Lepisorus thunbergianus Weeping fern Photo: CC BY, Kiwi ShenPollia japonica Pollia japonica East Asian pollia Photo: CC BY, uniponRanunculus cantoniensis Ranunculus cantoniensis Canton buttercup Photo: CC BY, 如此甚好Lepisorus carnosus Lepisorus carnosus Polypodiaceae Photo: CC BY, 王天Rumex japonicus Rumex japonicus Japanese Dock Photo: CC BY, WATANABE Hitoshi 渡辺仁

Names & registers

Also known as Boehmeriopsis pallida; Fatoua aspera; Fatoua cordata; Fatoua globulifera; Fatoua japonica and 14 more. (GBIF Backbone)

Kew accepts as species of their own Capsulea bashanensis; Fatoua pilosa: older names in GBIF's record of this species that Kew's World Checklist accepts as other species. (WCVP, RBG Kew, file of 2026-06-04)

GBIFPOWOIPNIWFOWikidataWikipediaiNaturalist

The record

Family
Moraceae
Described by
(Thunb.) Nakai
Native to
China South-Central, Hainan, China Southeast +20
Wild records
567 in range · 388 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; 141 records within 1 km of a botanic garden, herbarium or zoo left out (87 at a botanic garden or arboretum, 13 at a herbarium, 41 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 33.50_133.750, lapse-corrected -206 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 131 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.

Cultifolio

Opening your plants…