Species
+

Galphimia glauca Cav.

Malpighiaceae

Climate known 89 photographs
Add one to my plants Sow seed

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

Galphimia glauca, also known as rain of gold, golden showers, thryallis and shower of gold, is a flowering shrub in the Malpighiaceae family that is native to Central America.

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

About the genus · Galphimia

Galphimia is a genus in the Malpighiaceae, a family of about 75 genera of flowering plants in the order Malpighiales; the name is an anagram of Malpighia. Galphimia comprises 26 species of large herbs, shrubs, and treelets. Twenty-two species occur in Mexico, one extending into Texas and one ranging to Nicaragua; four species occur in South America, south of the Amazon Basin. More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Galphimia”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Malpighiaceae
Described by
Cav.
Native to
Mexico Central, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Gulf +4
Wild records
816 in range· 600 open

At a glance

Warmest month
28°C
May, mean day; nights 14 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
859mm/yr
6 wet months · peak Jul 184 mm (CHELSA)
Light
30–46DLI
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 summer growing season, June to September in the northern hemisphere (June to September at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 859 mm a year, wettest July at 184 mm, driest March at 9 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 30 to 46 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 2.0 °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 Malpighia glauca (Cav.) Pers.; Malpighia glauca (Cav.) Poir.; Thryallis glauca (Cav.) Kuntze.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: a summer growing season, June to September in the northern hemisphere (June to September at the habitat, northern).

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 (664 mm of 859 mm) falls in June to September, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 19.6 °C against a yearly mean of 18.1 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: December to March.

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 859 mm a year, wettest July at 184 mm, driest March at 9 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

859 mm a year at the habitat, 664 mm of it June to September. Wettest month July at 184 mm, driest March at 9 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 540 mm to 1460 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: 30 to 46 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 30 to 46 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 50).

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 2.0 °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 2.0 °C, the absolute minimum -4.2 °C, 37 frost nights in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 35.0 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 8.0 °C in January (across the envelope cells 4.9 °C to 14.3 °C), warmest day 27.6 °C in May (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 2.0 °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: 50 to 65% 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 22 °C in Jan to 28 °C in May; mean night from 8 °C in Jan to 15 °C in Jun. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 859 mm of rain a year, most in Jul. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 523 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -4.2 °C and the 99th-percentile day 35.0 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-10°10°20°30°40°frost35.0° 99th-percentile day (undated)-4.2° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter050100150200250300mm rainDLI 30–46RH 50–65 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 523 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 °C22 / 18–2723 / 20–2925 / 22–3127 / 24–3228 / 24–3325 / 22–3124 / 21–3024 / 21–3023 / 20–2923 / 20–2923 / 19–2822 / 18–27
Night °C8 / 5–149 / 6–1510 / 7–1712 / 9–1914 / 11–2115 / 12–2114 / 11–2114 / 11–2114 / 11–2113 / 10–1910 / 7–179 / 6–15
Rain mm16 / 7–4112 / 7–269 / 4–2119 / 4–4252 / 19–88154 / 78–251184 / 95–299173 / 83–282153 / 87–28763 / 38–14115 / 9–419 / 5–37
DLI32 / 26–3437 / 32–3943 / 38–4546 / 41–4845 / 41–5039 / 35–4338 / 33–4238 / 33–4133 / 30–3633 / 30–3632 / 27–3430 / 25–33
RH %53 / 47–6152 / 45–5950 / 43–5850 / 42–5854 / 45–6262 / 55–6764 / 58–6864 / 58–6865 / 59–7062 / 54–6657 / 49–6354 / 48–61

Each figure is the median across the 523 grid cells holding the 800 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 1385:1612 (20.725, -99.375). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -4.2 °C, 1st-percentile night 2.0 °C, 99th-percentile day 35.0 °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 523 distinct grid cells holding the 800 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1385:1612 (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 20.50_-99.375, lapse-corrected -205 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 1780 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.
NativeMexico Central, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southwest, Guatemala, Nicaragua
Kew's description“shrub” · “seasonally dry tropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker18.278, -97.548 · in the densest population, 571 records (70% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 816 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 600 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 51 km away. 131 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 16 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 816 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Galphimia glaucaGalphimia glaucaGalphimia glaucaGalphimia glaucaGalphimia glaucaGalphimia glaucaGalphimia glaucaGalphimia glauca

Photographs: (c) Caleb Catto, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) TEVAarts, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA); (c) Juan Carlos Pérez Magaña, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) (5).

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

New Antiasthmatic Drugs from Traditional Medicine?
Walter Dorsch, Hildebert Wagner (2009) · International Archives of Allergy and Applied Immunology
Medicinal plants for the treatment of “nervios”, anxiety, and depression in Mexican Traditional Medicine
Silvia Laura Guzmán‐Gutiérrez, Ricardo Reyes‐Chilpa, Herlinda Bonilla Jaime (2014) · Revista Brasileira de Farmacognosia
Plantas medicinais no tratamento do transtorno de ansiedade generalizada: uma revisão dos estudos clínicos controlados
Thalita Thais Faustino, Rodrigo Batista de Almeida, Roberto Andreatini (2010) · Brazilian Journal of Psychiatry
Metabolic Profiling of the Mexican Anxiolytic and Sedative PlantGalphimia glaucaUsing Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy and Multivariate Data Analysis
Alexandre Cardoso-Taketa, Rogelio Pereda‐Miranda, Young Hae Choi, Robert Verpoorte (2008) · Planta Medica
Evaluation of antioxidant, antimicrobial and antiproliferative activity of silver nanoparticles derived from Galphimia glauca leaf extract
Bidhayak Chakraborty, Raju Suresh Kumar, Abdulrahman I. Almansour, D. Kotresha (2021) · Journal of King Saud University - Science
Anxiolytic and antidepressant-like activity of a standardized extract from Galphimia glauca
Maribel Herrera‐Ruíz, Enrique Jiménez‐Ferrer, Thereza Christina Monteiro de Lima, Dante Avilés-Montes (2005) · Phytomedicine
Phytochemical Screening Of Eight Traditionally Used Ethnomedicinal Plants From Akola District (Ms) India
Deepak Koche, Rupali Shirsat, Syed Imran, D.G BHADANGE D.G BHADANGE (2010) · International Journal of Pharma and Bio Sciences

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.

Other Galphimia 1 in the reference

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 96 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.