Goeppertia zebrina, Peñas Blancas, Provincia de Alajuela, San Ramón, Costa Rica

Goeppertia zebrina (Sims) Nees

Zebra-plant, Zebraplant, zebra calathea

Climate known 49 photographs Tropical foliage plant

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

Goeppertia zebrina, the zebra plant, is a species of plant in the family Marantaceae, native to southeastern Brazil. It is sometimes known by the synonym Calathea zebrina. Goeppertia zebrina has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.

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

About the genus · Goeppertia

Goeppertia is a genus of flowering plants in the family Marantaceae, native to the New World Tropics. It contains 243 accepted species, many of which were until recently assigned to Calathea. It was first described by Nees von Esenbeck in 1831, who erroneously erected another genus Goeppertia in 1836, which has now been synonymized with Endlicheria. More on Wikipedia ›

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

Family

Marantaceae

Described by

(Sims) Nees

Native to

Brazil Northeast, Brazil Southeast, Brazil South

Wild records

157 in range· 82 open

At a glance

Warmest month

28°C

Feb, mean day; nights 21 °C (CHELSA)

Rain

1536mm/yr

12 wet months · peak Jan 229 mm (CHELSA)

Light

22–37DLI

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 tropical foliage plant by the genus Goeppertia, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a summer growing season, April to September in the northern hemisphere (October to March at the habitat, southern). Habitat rain 1536 mm a year, wettest January at 229 mm, driest June at 55 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 22 to 37 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 13.2 °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 Calathea binotii (Pynaert) Gentil; Calathea pulchella (Linden ex K.Koch) Körn.; Calathea zebrina (Sims) Lindl.; Calathea zebrina subsp. humilior Körn.; Calathea zebrina var. binotii L.H.Bailey & Raffill and 14 more.

Cultivation

Grouped as a tropical foliage plant by the genus Goeppertia, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). The table supplies one figure for this group, a conventional minimum for the cold floor, and no prose.

Its year Rain rule: a summer growing season, April to September in the northern hemisphere (October 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 (1088 mm of 1536 mm) falls in October to March, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 23.0 °C against a yearly mean of 21.1 °C). Months are the habitat's, southern hemisphere; shifted six months for a northern-hemisphere collection: April 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 1536 mm a year, wettest January at 229 mm, driest June at 55 mm (habitat calendar, southern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1536 mm a year at the habitat, 1088 mm of it October to March. Wettest month January at 229 mm, driest June at 55 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 1306 mm to 2042 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: 22 to 37 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 22 to 37 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 18, the highest 90th-percentile month 40).

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 13.2 °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 13.2 °C, the absolute minimum 7.8 °C, no frost in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 27.4 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 14.1 °C in July (across the envelope cells 11.0 °C to 17.4 °C), warmest day 27.8 °C in February (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 13.2 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER); the archetype table's minimum for a tropical foliage plant, 12 °C, is lower and does not raise it.

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, and the archetype table's group minimum where that is higher. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 63 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 99 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	27 / 26–30	28 / 26–30	27 / 25–29	25 / 24–28	23 / 21–26	22 / 20–25	22 / 19–24	23 / 20–25	23 / 21–26	24 / 22–27	25 / 24–28	26 / 25–29
Night °C	21 / 18–23	21 / 18–23	20 / 18–23	19 / 16–22	17 / 13–20	15 / 12–18	14 / 11–17	15 / 12–18	16 / 13–18	18 / 15–20	19 / 16–21	20 / 17–22
Rain mm	229 / 149–323	151 / 104–239	174 / 138–247	112 / 84–155	80 / 47–121	55 / 34–99	57 / 30–115	55 / 31–89	89 / 64–145	133 / 106–169	180 / 134–255	221 / 158–299
DLI	37 / 35–40	37 / 34–40	32 / 30–35	28 / 25–30	23 / 20–25	22 / 18–23	22 / 18–24	26 / 23–28	28 / 25–30	32 / 30–34	34 / 31–37	36 / 33–37
RH %	66 / 63–70	66 / 63–70	67 / 64–71	67 / 64–70	66 / 63–69	64 / 62–68	63 / 62–68	63 / 61–68	65 / 62–69	66 / 63–70	66 / 64–71	67 / 64–71

Each figure is the median across the 99 grid cells holding the 146 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 2349:2631 (-27.475, -48.425). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum 7.8 °C, 1st-percentile night 13.2 °C, 99th-percentile day 27.4 °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 99 distinct grid cells holding the 146 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 2349:2631 (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 -27.50_-48.125, lapse-corrected +82 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 85 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.

NativeBrazil Northeast, Brazil Southeast, Brazil South· introduced: Dominican Republic, Leeward Is. AB Ant, Puerto Rico, Trinidad-Tobago, Venezuelan Antilles

Kew's description“perennial” · “wet tropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here

Map marker-20.059, -40.471 · in the densest population, 98 records (62% of those in range)

Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 157 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 82 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 250 km away. 281 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 11 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 157 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Photographs: (c) Diogo Luiz, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) Maria Janeiro, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Skjold Søndergaard, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Rose Zappa, some rights reserved (CC BY); no rights reserved · CC0 (3).

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

Occurrence Download